Month: April 2017
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Video: Great take on the mainstream media (MSM)
Hank Green of Vlogbrothers with a great take on the dreaded mainstream media (MSM) and the backlash against experts in general. Media and government certainly share the blame but really, it’s our fault if the media is going downhill. The media, for the most part, gives us what we want because they have to in…
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Things you can call bullshit on, according to science
Regardless of what memes pop up in your timeline or what it says in the emails your mom sends, the following things are true according to science: Chemical-free isn’t a real thing, everything is made of chemicals Chemtrails are just water vapour Chiropractors are not doctors Climate change is real and caused by humans Conspiracy…
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![The Robot Will See You Now [video]](https://justinbeach.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screenshot-2B2017-04-28-2B11.09.29.png)
The Robot Will See You Now [video]
I talked a few days ago about the potential near-term future of AI in health care. Just to kind of supplement that a bit, here is a video from wired about some current applications of medical bots, some of the things that are in the pipe and the pros and cons of automation in health…
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When will robots take over food delivery?
Photo credit: stavos via Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-ND It is difficult to estimate the number of people employed in food delivery. There are full time drivers who work for, for example, pizza restaurants; there are people who work for restaurants in other capacities that sometimes go on delivery runs and there are people who work…
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Google and Facebook roll out new steps to fight fake news, Twitter does not
Fake news played a role in the outcome of Brexit and the US election. It is being used as a propaganda tool throughout Europe and promoters of fake news are attempting to influence the French election specifically. It is also being used in an attempt to influence elections in Africa and was recently blamed for a decline in…
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Would you trade your doctor for an app?
There is no doubt that robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are going to have a significant impact on the health industry. The biggest obstacle, as in many industries, is likely to be trust. However, medical bots and AI may help to alleviate many of the other complaints about health care including cost, convenience and availability….
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Fox News should seize this moment to reinvent themselves
Fox News is rapidly becoming the network of racists and sexual predators. Every day new allegations of harassment, intimidation and abuse are coming to light. These are periodically followed by multi-million dollar court settlements and occasionally someone else gets fired. The supposedly ‘fair and balanced’ Fox rose to prominence during the Rush Limbaugh right wing…
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Update: Take 2
Embed from Getty Images I created this and then sort of abandoned it, both because I got busy with other projects and because I was having a hard time keeping up and decided what to write about. The rise of robotics and artificial intelligence which was largely the stuff of science fiction just a decade…
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Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Earth Day/Science March message (video)
Neil Degrasse Tyson posted this message to Facebook on April 19, calling it perhaps the most important words he’s ever spoken. That is somewhat shocking for scientist because all he said, in essence, was that ‘facts are true’. That, to me, is largely what today’s Science March is all about though. The United States and…
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3 Ways to spot a bad statistic with Mona Chalabi
In this 12 minute Ted Talk, Mona Chilabi, currently of the Guardian (and formerly of FiveThirtyEight, Bank of England, and the Economist Intelligence Unit) talks about the importance of government data and the misuse of statistics. Most journalists have only a basic understanding of how to use statistics and know even less about how to…