Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #420

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see”.

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another: 

• Radio host quits job over chronic dread, then decides to face her fears head-on – Out In The Open – CBC. “I wish I had the time to spend a year doing the things that frighten me. But first I’d have to figure out what those were, which sounds pretty terrifying in itself.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Ethical Algorithms – Bias and Explainability in Machine Learning Systems – New York Artificial Intelligence – YouTube. “Kathryn Hume is a national treasure. One of the most eloquent, poetic thinkers I’ve ever met on the subjects of technology and society. Here’s a video of her talking about explainability and bias in artificial intelligence. It’s dense, but fascinating.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• David Harvey on Capital. Interview with The Dig Podcast – Reading Marx’s Capital With David Harvey. “Did you know I’m a bit of an idealist/socialist/marxist-ish kind of guy? I’m not sure what the solutions are, and I don’t much trust Marxists to find them, but I’ve always liked the Marxist analysis of the problems of capitalism. David Harvey is one of the great scholars of Marx, and everything I’ve heard and read from him is insightful. In this podcast, he muses on some of the current problems we find ourselves in, the difference between insane people and an insane system, the reason the left should embrace AI and not fight it, and he makes the case that the ‘market’ is anything but ‘rational’ … if it were rational, why is it that we see, side buy side, a surplus of capital accumulation, needing ever more complex mechanisms to deploy it (eg building empty cities in China), and a surplus of labour, with little ability to put these two together for productive uses?” (Hugh for Alistair).
• The horror and the wonder of jellyfish – New Statesman. “Jellyfish are strange things!” (Hugh for Mitch). 
• Billionaire Ray Dalio: A.I. is widening the wealth gap, ‘national emergency should be declared’ – CNBC. “Artificial intelligence is going to cause a much deeper wealth gap. That’s not just the words of a famed billionaire talking. I believe it too. I’m sure that do as well? If we think about the impact of AI today, instead of worrying about when it really happens tomorrow, perhaps this headline is then not as outlandish as it may seem at first blush. Are we in the need to treat massive technological disruptions (like AI) as ‘national emergencies’? You be the judge.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• The comic book artists that fuelled a century of science innovation – Quartz. “Last weekend, I spent a lot of time (and money) at Montreal ComicCon (along with 60,000 other people!). I’ve been a comic book nerd since I was a very little kid. OG. I can’t remember not having comic books in my life. I liked the stories. I liked the characters. What really captured my imagination was the art. To this day, it’s still the artwork that gets me every time. Here’s the story of how comic books impact culture and innovation and science. Hint: it’s not just big budget action adventure movies!” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.