Robert “Robby” Silk is the founder of competitive chair-sitting, an extreme sport where people compete for the longest time spent sitting in uncomfortable environments like deserts. Silk attempted his first competitive chair-sitting session five years after reading The Haj, a novel by American author Leon Uris. He was inspired by a scene where a man vowed to wait steadfastly in a desert for his package, no matter how long it took; the scene’s message that “time is of no consequence” resonated with Silk profoundly. Read full article here
Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here
Merv
August 15, 2022
