Tag: Synthesis Technologies

The realisation came when I least expected it. We had been out of South Africa for five years when we met my parents, siblings and their families for a family holiday. Our children by then had gained New York accents and were stylishly attired in their overpriced fashion items, whilst the nieces and nephews marauded through the hotel in their 'Naartjie' outfits that were more akin to pajamas than to fashion.

Freedom comes with responsibility. To be free (to have the power and right to act, speak and think as we wish), is to be responsible for the freedom of others. Freedom means respect for those who are also living free. It asks us to stand up and be accountable. But can Artificial Intelligence (AI) be accountable when even we, as humans, can find this challenging?

Over the last few months, I have found it increasingly difficult to verify information. The Tembisa 10, the story of the alleged decuplet birth is case in point. It was accepted as fact and reported around the world. But it was fiction and rightfully condemned by the South African Editors Forum (SANEF).

Imagine a world of less admin, less adulting. A world designed to make your life easier, happier, and simpler. A world where you are less confined to the box of banalities. This is the world imagined on a recent podcast called Brave Banking.

News that Bill and Melinda Gates are to get divorced after 27 years of marriage, hit me hard. Not because I know them or their children, but because if any couple stood a chance of growing old and miserable together, it was them...

The chaotic scenes in the skies around the United States in the days that followed the September 11 attacks resulted in planes being forced to land wherever they could. In many instances, passengers, dazed and confused, found themselves disembarking at airports of towns that they had never heard of. As was the case for those arriving in Ganda on the island of Newfoundland. Somewhere in Canada.

I am perplexed as to why it should matter how the meeting between the ANC’s top 6 and former president Jacob Zuma went. They met him, apparently in an attempt to persuade him to comply with a court ruling and appear before the Zondo Commission of Enquiry. And they updated the country as if we should care.

Whereas there might be many faces to Jacob Zuma, most of them can be condensed into two primary themes. He is either the villain, ominous and threatening and openly defiant of the law, the NEC and of the wishes of the country; or he is the victim: wide eyed, picked on and singled out for very little reason.

The story is told of an optimist who falls from the top of the Empire State Building. On the way down, around the 30th floor, someone leans out the window and shouts, “Hey, how is it going?” The optimist, still falling, looks at him, gives him a big thumbs up and a confident smile, and screams back, “Yeah! So far so good!” 

Black Friday is what happens when the dangerous mixture of anxiety and excitement are blended in a retail test tube. Although we might think that we know what is going to happen, the result is almost never as predictable as we would like it to be; with the risk that it might all blow up always a possibility. Each year in the build-up to the day, both consumers and suppliers deal with the fact that things can go horribly wrong.