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Not a day passes without a fascinating snippet on the ethical challenges created by “black box” artificial intelligence systems. These use machine learning to figure out patterns within data and make decisions – often without a human giving them any moral basis for how to do it. Classics of the genre are thecredit cards accusedof awarding bigger loans to men than women, based simply on which gender got the best credit terms in the past....

We keep looking for aliens — but are aliens looking for us? Something in the air Light passing through our atmosphere would reveal the presence of large concentrations ofoxygen, along with methane and other gases revealing life on our world. Astronomers are just now developing the ability to search the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars, looking for telltale signs of life. In the coming years, astronomers could find the chemical fingerprints of life on other worlds....

All around the world, there is an extreme gender imbalance in physics, in both academia and industry. Examples are all too easy to find. In Burkina Faso’s largest university, the University of Ouagadougou, 99% of physics students are men. In Germany, women comprise only 24% of physics PhD graduates — creeping up from 21% in 2017. No women graduated in physical sciences at the University of El Salvador between 2017 and 2020....

Huge concrete data centers, permanently plugged into power plants and telephone exchanges, maintain much of online life. But the infrastructure behind internet-based cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, dogecoin and ethereum is more like a rusty traveling circus. And right now, that circus is on the road. Bitcoin relies on a network of millions of specialist machines, known as miners, around 70% of which arecurrently based in China. Like a never-ending game ofHungry Hippos, each player hammers their mining machines 24/7 to try and scoop up as many bitcoins as possible....

Do you manage people at work? If so, how would you describe your role? If not, how would you describe the person who manages you? Think about it. I’ll give you a minute… Do the words “public servant” come to mind? Unless you’re working for an elected official, the answer is almost certainly “no,”and that’s the reason why I founded BetterManager. Because our society views managing people as either an obligation or bragging right; it’s either something that pays the bills or a way to exercise power over others and inflate one’s ego....