In Search of Safer Shelters: The Challenges of Replicating Nature
Human-made shelters don’t always keep creatures out of harm’s way. Can technology help design a better birdhouse?
Read more...Category Archives: Technology and innovation
How Shareholder Value Fixation Turns AI and Robotics into a Recipe for Failure
New technologies are not the problem. It’s a system distorted by a flawed shareholder value ideology.
Read more...Is Intellectual Property Turning into a Knowledge Monopoly?
How private capital has hijacked research and intellectual property practices, to the detriment of invention and society generally.
Read more...Income Share Agreements for Higher Education Get a Rebrand
Agreements in which students owe a percentage of post-graduate income are likely to lead to more peonage as Wall Street is eager to get in on the action.
Read more...Productive and Unproductive Crises
Making a case from past crises that we’ll muddle through our current set and thanks to technology, eventually come out better.
Read more...Labor Economist: AI May Bring a Boom in Horrible Jobs
Losing jobs isn’t the only thing workers have to worry about. AI may make many jobs worse.
Read more...Technotage on the Rise? More Efforts to Stymie Job-Threatening, Sometimes Hazardous “Innovations”
Ant-technology action, or technotage, seems to be increasing. Is this a trend or just coincidence?
Read more...Book Review: Two Critiques of America’s Ailing Health Care System
Two new books chronicle the shortcomings of the nation’s health care system, if you can call it that.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Full Commercialization of Robotaxis Arrives in San Francisco
After sinking billions of dollars into robotaxis, these companies are under pressure to show significant revenues.
Read more...U.S. And China Locked in an Underwater Cable Tug-of-War
A cable impasse in the South Pacific, due in large part to failings in both US and Chinese legal and enforcement regimes.
Read more...More on the Collapse of Operational Capabilities in the West: How Did We Get Here
Some thoughts on the rapid decline in operational capabilities, or why tons of people, particularly those in charge, are no good at their jobs
Read more...As the Ukraine War Drags On, It’s Time to Reassess the Impacts of Sanctions
The bundle of sanctions was initially designed and imposed in haste, with little basis to assess historic performance.
Read more...Science Versus Scientism in Real Life: Where Do We Go from Here?
An engaging discussion of science-adjacent scintism, including Theranos. glysophate, Golden Rice, and rewilding.
Read more...Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Nuclear-Industrial Complex
A measured but wide-ranging takedown on the movie Oppenheimer and the way it goes way too easy on too many matters nuclear.
Read more...Be Aware: Someone Could Steal Your Medical Records and Bill You for Their Care
On medical fraud: what you can do to prevent it and respond when it happens.
Read more...