Home

On:

Despite the disturbing warnings detailed in last week’s Unknown Country Weekender, which warned of the potential dangers posed to mankind from Artificial Intelligence (AI), further news of our continued but highly questionable faith in this form of technology has emerged.

In a recent article in the New York Times, a form of particularly chilling AI is described: it appears that man in his wisdom has now devolved the responsibility of whom to kill down to so-called "intelligent" bombs. The article reveals that last year, an Air Force B-1 bomber tested a new missile off the coast of Southern California, but this was a missile with a difference.
read more

On:

A recent Unknown Country news article outlined the results of a poll in which representatives from the global population were canvassed for their opinions. The poll asked participants which from a list of dangers they considered to be the most likely to threaten continued human existence.

The options given in the poll ranged from nuclear weapons, religious and ethnic hatred, pollution and environmental disasters, economic crisis and disease. Yet, according to an Oxford philosophy professor who has performed extensive research in the field of all such existential threats, the biggest threat to mankind’s future may be "super-intelligence."
read more

On:

Of all the mammals currently living on this planet, the human race comes in a variety of diverse forms: a myriad of differing faces, skin colors, body shapes, eye colors, hair colors, heights and weight variations, but all undeniably "human."

All of these identifying features have, until very recently, been a product of evolution and the kaleidoscope of genetic diversity.
Historically, many varieties of hominid have existed, being defined by their most predominant capabilities and gradually evolving into more capable and advanced species: Homo habilis who had basic abilities; Homo erectus who could walk upright and homo sapiens who could think.
read more

On:

Science-fiction is littered with tales of cybernetic revolt, such as the legendary "Colossus and Guardian" team from the books of Dennis Feltham Jones, or SKYNET from the Terminator series of films, where super-computers, originally built to augment Man’s own power, seize that power for themselves and attempt to wipe out their creators.

The super-computers are typically given global access to all information, including nuclear warhead control systems, which they then use to systematically obliterate the world.

Of course, we would be far too sensible to do anything similar in reality, wouldn’t we?
read more