“Just think of the careers that have been ruined by smart-aleck tweets at 3 am that turn rancid in the light of day.” While it would require AI to figure out the intricacies of human communication, Tony Veale argues that the most practical reason our machines should have a sense of humour is to save us from ourselves. If a machine could understand our messages’ intent, he says, it could advise us on whether our midnight musings should be shared or not. Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
