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Tuesday, March 07, 2023

The Future of Human Agency

  “Your critics want you to be as unhappy, unfulfilled, and unimportant as they are. Let your happiness eat them up from inside.”

 Ricky Gervais


What on earth? “A search engine built on the new ChatGPT API.” Built by naklecha


From the latest Private Eye, a sure indication of a government gone both mad and bad


Brescia, Raymond H., Teaching to the Tech: Law Schools and the Duty of Technology Competence (February 16, 2023). Washburn Law Journal, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4361552 “As a result of a wide range of emerging technologies, the American legal profession is at a critical inflection point. 



Some may argue that lawyers face dramatic threats not only to their business models but also to their very usefulness in the face of new technologies that may mean some form of legal guidance will be available to virtually every American with a little bit of computer savvy and access to digital technologies. 

At the same time, in recent years, the profession has largely imposed upon itself a duty of technology competence, which imposes an array of obligations regarding the use and proliferation of new practice technologies. 


HMM. BUG, OR FEATURE?  Some People on Ozempic Lose the Desire to Drink. Scientists Are Asking Why.

As Ozempic gains more attention and more people use the diabetes drug off-label to lose weight, doctors say that many patients are reporting similar experiences: They start the medication and then stop wanting to drink alcohol.



The Future of Human Agency

 “Advances in the internet, artificial intelligence (AI) and online applications have allowed humans to vastly expand their capabilities and increase their capacity to tackle complex problems. These advances have given people the ability to instantly access and share knowledge and amplified their personal and collective power to understand and shape their surroundings. Today there is general agreement that smart machines, bots and systems powered mostly by machine learning and artificial intelligence will quickly increase in speed and sophistication between now and 2035. As individuals more deeply embrace these technologies to augment, improve and streamline their lives, they are continuously invited to outsource more decision-making and personal autonomy to digital tools. Some analysts have concerns about how business, government and social systems are becoming more automated. They fear humans are losing the ability to exercise judgment and make decisions independent of these systems. Others optimistically assertthat throughout history humans have generally benefited from technological advances. They say that when problems arise, new regulations, norms and literacies help ameliorate the technology’s shortcomings. And they believe these harnessing forces will take hold, even as automated digital systems become more deeply woven into daily life. Thus the question: What is the future of human agency? Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center asked experts to share their insights on this; 540 technology innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers, academics and activists responded. Specifically, they were asked: By 2035, will smart machines, bots and systems powered by artificial intelligence be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making that is relevant to their lives? The results of this nonscientific canvassing:

  • 56% of these experts agreed with the statement that by 2035 smart machines, bots and systems will not be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making.
  • 44% said they agreed with the statement that by 2035 smart machines, bots and systems will be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making…”