Category: #OSE Open Source Everything

Connecting everyone to the internet won’t solve the world’s development problems

According to a new report from the World Bank, more than 40% of the global population now has internet access. On average, eight in ten people in the developing world own a mobile phone. Even in the poorest 20% of households this number is nearly seven in ten, making cellphones more prevalent than toilets or clean water.

In my privileged home, digital technology brings me choice and convenience. It will be a long time before the digital revolution brings similar returns for everyone, everywhere.

Continue reading “Jean Lievens: Smart Cities Are Not Smart If They Just Connect to the Internet”

Continue reading “Nikolai Danalylov: YouTube (1:21:32) On Open Source Everything – Ethics is an Operating System”

How can Blockchain redefine the relationship between the UK government and citizens?

Just last week, the UK government was urged to consider adopting blockchain, with the government’s chief scientist, Sir Mark Walport who argued that using the technology could “redefine the relationship between government and the citizen in terms of data sharing, transparency and trust.”

I think humanity is in dangerous territory in respect of the ever-increasing concentration of money, therein power, in consequence of companies, such as Facebook, “shamelessly” [to quote the BBC] avoiding tax via offshore holding companies.

Individuals tend to dislike paying taxes, because it’s often hard for them to see where their contribution goes. However, wherever it goes, ultimately, tax is, at least hypothetically, democratic, wherein voters have a say in how much they pay, and have capacity to influence where it goes.

However, when money, therein power, is pooled into the hands of the few, not the many, we approach a Nero-esque scenario, in which the likes of Facebook executives have influence disproportionate to their experience, and worse still, influence that is undemocratic.

Continue reading “Melissa Sterry: Why Facebook & Google Fail to Meet Need for an Open Source Everything Platform”

Human Intelligence and Open Source Technologies

Robert Steele on February 1, 2016 in SingularityWeblog

The current fads

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) are hot current fads. Both technologies have been a long time in gestation. The ramp-up has taken decades. The current bet – one I do not agree with – is that both of these product categories will take off like the Internet or the mobile phone.

They are fads in part because they are totally disconnected from the larger real world in which we all live. I worry about artificial stupidity being deeply embedded in bureaucratic and machine processes that take on a life of their own, and I worry about so much money being spent on virtual reality that we forget we have been pooping on ourselves with abandon for two centuries and the cesspool is now up to our nose. Nature bats last – no amount of VR is going to change that.

Continue reading “Robert Steele: Human Intelligence and Open Source Technologies in Singularity Weblog”