New blog post at The Turing:
Ethics and innovation belong hand in hand. By Helen Margetts, Cosmina Dorobantu, and Josh Cowls.
Category: Pieces
This page brings together short articles and blog posts, many of which have been published elsewhere online and in print.
Forget elections — the data sharing that keeps me up at night is much more fundamental
Several weeks on from the initial story breaking, we are still feeling the fallout of revelations that data gathered from unwitting Facebook users was used to build a system allegedly to target individual American voters.
Review: By Chloe’s meat mimicry mostly misses the mark
Between stories of animal rights abuses, health concerns and climate change, there have never been more reasons to cut out meat and dairy products entirely and take on a purely plant-powered lifestyle. From meatless Mondays to glossy vegan cookbooks, embracing a plant-only diet is becoming both easier and much more appetizing. Hopping aboard this trend is By Chloe …
Building a dAIty
How do you solve a problem like problem-solving? That is the motivating question behind efforts to develop general artificial intelligence — a quest brought vividly to life by Max Tegmark in his new book, Life 3.0…
Will we become the machine before the machine becomes us?
“The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO becomes us.”
So proclaimed Ted Sarandos, chief content officer of Netflix, in 2013 …
Review: Meju’s Seoulful fare is worth a trip to Davis Square
At first glance, Meju bears all the hallmarks of the several hip bars that surround it in Davis Square. Meju is a relatively new Davis tenant, spinning out from Allston sibling Bibim last year, and is clearly dressed to fit in with its immediate surroundings: delicate lighting and a partial exposed-brick interior contribute to a familiar, though inviting, atmosphere. …
Review: Suvaai, offering rich rewards, demands a journey north
Head up Mass Ave from campus and you’ll pass mainstays like Clover and Flour, trendy vegetarian spots like Life Alive and Veggie Galaxy, and the chic eateries surrounding Harvard. But it’s worth the effort to keep going. The best ramen (Sapporo), pho (Pho House), and bagels (Bagelsaurus) on this side of the Charles line the quiet stretch between Harvard and Porter Squares. Head on a little further still and you’ll reach Suvaai. It’s an unassuming spot — keep your eyes open for the red lights strung up in the window, guiding you in like an airport runway …
Review: D.C. drama casts light on shady lobbying
If 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that politics today is all about performance — a conclusion inescapably reached in Miss Sloane, the new Beltway-based political thriller from John Madden. The eponymous Sloane (Jessica Chastain) is an ambitious politico working for a strictly amoral DC lobbying firm. Yet Sloane has a secret, something that passes for heresy in her firm: on some political issues, she actually cares …
Generation Boom
One of my most formative experiences was an upper school trip to the battlefields of France and Belgium. Amidst all the stories of carnage and destruction, and the unfathomable numbers of casualties involved, what struck me above all else was the sheer proximity of the respective front lines. In some places a mere hundred yards might separate the two groups of young European men, conscripted to throw grenades and fire rifles at each other across the small parcel of scorched earth between them.
Review: Darkness lurks in Hemingway’s island paradise
“Never meet your heroes” is the cardinal rule broken by reporter Ed Myers, the protagonist of Papa: Hemingway in Cuba, a largely true-to-life depiction of Ernest Hemingway’s sunset years. It’s 1957, and in the sepia-toned newsroom of the Miami Globe, Myers sweats over the latest draft of a fan letter to esteemed writer and recent Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway. A short time later, Myers receives an unexpected phone call from Hemingway himself, warmly inviting him on a trip to Cuba, the writer’s adopted home …
Josh Cowls 