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What If the AI Revolution Is Neither Utopia nor Apocalypse, but Something in Between?

Why does everyone assume that the AI revolution will either lead to a fiery apocalypse or a glorious utopia, and not something in between? Of course, part of this is down to the fact that you get more attention by saying “The end is nigh!” or “Utopia is coming!”

But part of it is down to how humans think about change, especially unprecedented change. Millenarianism doesn’t have anything to do with being a “millennial,” being born in the 90s and remembering Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a way of thinking about the future that involves a deeply ingrained sense of destiny. A definition might be: “Millenarianism is the expectation that the world as it is will be destroyed and replaced with a perfect world, that a redeemer will come to cast down the evil and raise up the righteous.”

Millenarian beliefs, then, intimately link together the ideas of destruction and creation. They involve the idea of a huge, apocalyptic, seismic shift that will destroy the fabric of the old world and create something entirely new. Similar belief systems exist in many of the world’s major religions, and also the unspoken religion of some atheists and agnostics, which is a belief in technology.

Yosemite Valley to close to visitors as powerful storm moves in

Yosemite Valley will close to the public Friday ahead of a powerful storm that could bring flooding to the area, officials said.

Visitors were asked to leave by 5 p.m. and all overnight reservations were canceled through Saturday night, according to Yosemite National Park officials who say the storm may cause “significant impacts.”

After the storm passes, authorities will assess road and facility conditions to determine when Yosemite Valley, home to many of the park’s picturesque waterfalls and cliffs, can reopen.

6.2-earthquake strikes off Mindanao in Philippines

Temblor hits at a depth of 61 km (38 miles), about 128 km (80 miles) east of the island’s key city of Davao.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 struck off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake, which hit at a depth of 61 km (38 miles), about 128 km (80 miles) east of the island’s key city of Davao.

Only Two-Thirds Of American Millennials Believe The Earth Is Round

Kids these days…


Millennials in America sometimes get a bad reputation, this time for good reason. A recent survey found that just 66 percent of young adults aged 18 to 24 years old have “always believed the world is round.”

YouGov polled 8,215 US adults on February 8th, 2018 to get a representative idea of America’s views on the shape of the Earth. What they found would make any scientist shake their heads, a surprising percentage of responders weren’t convinced the Earth is round.

The question asked individuals to categorize their thoughts surrounding the shape of the Earth into one of the five buckets below: