Author: The Conversation

Elon Musk announced the Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot designed to help with those repetitive, boring tasks people hate doing. Musk suggested it could run to the grocery store for you, but presumably it would handle any number of tasks involving manual labor. Predictably, social media filled with references to a string of dystopian sci-fi movies about robots where everything goes horribly wrong. As troubling as the robot futures in movies like I, Robot, The Terminator and others are, it’s the underlying technologies of real humanoid robots – and the intent behind them – that should be cause for concern. Musk’s robot is being developed…

Through social distancing mandates, lockdown measures and restrictions on gatherings and services, the pandemic has brought about widespread changes to how modern societies function. And everyone has become more reliant on smartphones. One study found smartphone use increased by 70 per cent during the first few months of the pandemic. And a recent Canadian survey found more than 40 per cent of respondents are spending even more time on their phones this year. The reliance on digital technologies, including smartphones, has increased tremendously because of the need to do everything from home — working, studying, staying connected, reading the news and interacting with…

A new law gives Australian police unprecedented powers for online surveillance, data interception and altering data. These powers, outlined in the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, raise concerns over potential misuse, privacy and security. The bill updates the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. In essence, it allows law-enforcement agencies or authorities (such as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission) to modify, add, copy or delete data  on Facebook or other social platforms when investigating serious online crimes. The Human Rights Law Centre says the bill has insufficient safeguards for free speech and press…

In an effort to curtail how much time young people spend playing video games, China has banned students from playing them during the school week and limits them to just one hour per day on Fridays, weekends and holidays. The new rule took effect Sept. 1, 2021. From my standpoint as a video game designer and scholar who specializes in game-based learning, I don’t see a need to limit video game play among students during the school week. Instead, I see a need to expand it – and to do so during the regular school day. Video games are one of the most…

The saga over subscription-based social media platform OnlyFans, which announced it would ban sexually explicit content only to reverse that decision a week later, has highlighted just how quickly such a platform can move the goalposts for those relying on it for an income. Yes, the most successful “content creators” on OnlyFans can reportedly make more than US$100,000 a month. But they are the minority. Most barely make enough to justify the hustle, with the median income estimated to be US$180 a month. Strip away the sexy marketing and what you have is just another digital platform facilitating another form of gig work, substantially no…

Over the past 25 years, the name “Google” has become synonymous with the idea of searching for anything online. In much the same way “to Hoover” means to use a vacuum cleaner, dictionaries have recognised “to Google” as meaning to undertake an online search using any available service. Former competitors such as AltaVista and AskJeeves are long dead, and existing alternatives such as Bing and DuckDuckGo currently pose little threat to Google’s dominance. But shifting our web searching habits to a single supplier has significant risks. Google also dominates in the web browser market (almost two-thirds of browsers are Chrome) and web advertising (Google…

Digital technology is ubiquitous. We have been increasingly reliant on smartphones, tablets and computers over the past 20 years, and this trend has been accelerating due to the pandemic. Conventional wisdom tells us that over-reliance on technology may take away from our ability to remember, pay attention and exercise self control. Indeed, these are important cognitive skills. However, fears that technology would supplant cognition may not be well founded. Technology alters society Socrates, considered by many to be the father of philosophy, was deeply worried about how the technology of writing would affect society. Since the oral tradition of delivering speeches…

September marks the 10th anniversary of “Dark Souls,” one of the most  important and influential video games of the last few decades. The game has generated a large and dedicated online player community and has inspired a new genre of interactive storytelling — the “soulslike.” These games are defined by high difficulty, explorative gameplay and a melancholic atmosphere. As a fan of “Dark Souls,” I am struck by how it takes up similar themes present in the early 19th-century Romanticist texts that I study for my PhD work in early post-apocalyptic literature. “Dark Souls,” as well as other soulslike games such as “Mortal Shell,” “Hollow Knight,” and…

In recent decades the cost of wind and solar power generation has dropped dramatically. This is one reason that the U.S. Department of Energy projects that renewable energy will be the fastest-growing U.S. energy source through 2050. However, it’s still relatively expensive to store energy. And since renewable energy generation isn’t available all the time – it happens when the wind blows or the sun shines – storage is essential. As a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, I work with the federal government and private industry to develop renewable energy storage technologies. In a recent report, researchers at NREL estimated that the potential exists to increase U.S.…

Hearables are wireless smart micro-computers with artificial intelligence that incorporate both speakers and microphones. They fit in the ears and can connect to the internet and to other devices, and are designed to be worn daily. Some technology companies are now marketing these as “the future of hearing enhancement,” and focusing on their capacities to disrupt existing hearing aid markets. But hearables aren’t hearing aids, ear plugs, headphones or headsets, although they could acquire the benefits of these devices. This means that one could rely on hearables as a kind of always-worn personal assistant nested in the ear, whether used for whispering…