Signal to Noise Report
Signal to Noise Report
Ghostly Voices, QR Menus, Invasive Satellites and Gore Fanatics. More headlines from the bright, unnerving world of today.
The Signal to Noise Report collects headlines to illustrate humanity’s move into what is beginning to resemble a hybrid species: The Jetsons meets Blade Runner. The idea being that we have a proclivity to accept (with glee) whatever new techno gizmos are shoved at us, yet rarely question their purpose and/or their long-term effects on our health and sanity.
In Earth Orbit, We Have Let Loose a New Invasive Species: Artificial Satellites
Thousands of satellites currently orbit the Earth, with commercial internet providers such as SpaceX’s Starlink launching new ones at a dizzying pace. Based on proposals for projects in the future, the authors note, the number could reach more than a hundred thousand within the decade. Artificial satellites, long a vital part of the space ecosystem, have arguably become an invasive species.
The band of orbital space just above our atmosphere is becoming so densely populated with satellites that it may threaten the practice of astronomy. Whereas the main source of light interference used to be the cities below, it is now increasingly the satellites above. These artificial stars can be a billion times brighter than the objects astronomers hope to study, and they emit radio waves that can interfere with telescopes. By some estimates, around one in twenty images from the Hubble Telescope are affected by the streaks of passing satellites. By 2030, the authors say, a third of Hubble’s images could be impacted.
Source: The Wire Science
These robots were trained on AI. They became racist and sexist.
Companies have been pouring billions of dollars into developing more robots to help replace humans for tasks such as stocking shelves, delivering goods or even caring for hospital patients. Heightened by the pandemic and a resulting labor shortage, experts describe the current atmosphere for robotics as something of a gold rush. But tech ethicists and researchers are warning that the quick adoption of the new technology could result in unforeseen consequences down the road as the technology becomes more advanced and ubiquitous.
As part of a recent experiment, scientists asked specially programmed robots to scan blocks with people’s faces on them, then put the “criminal” in a box. The robots repeatedly chose a block with a Black man’s face.
“When it comes to robotic systems, they have the potential to pass as objective or neutral objects compared to algorithmic systems,” she said. “That means the damage they’re doing can go unnoticed, for a long time to come.”
Source: The Washington Post
One day, Alexa will be able to mimic anyone's voice from only one minute of audio.
Amazon announced a move that broadens the reach of such technology to users of its Alexa smart assistant. An upcoming update to the tech will allow them to replace the standard voice with that of anyone, including deceased loved ones. The company claims that the technology, which does not yet have a release date, can generate a clone of a person’s voice with as little as one minute of audio. Whether one might find the notion of an AI-generated grandma reading a bedtime story from The Great Beyond creepy or endearing, the move represents a step forward in making synthetic voices more accessible.
Source: Popular Science
QR code menus are the death of civilization
If you don’t know what a restaurant QR code is, I envy you. It’s the black-and-white square code you find on a placard at the table when you are seated, asking you to scan it with your phone’s camera for a link to the establishment’s offerings. Offered up as a bit of hygiene when restaurants reopened after the shutdowns of the early pandemic period, online QR code menus are unnecessary, since the coronavirus is (we now know) an almost entirely airborne pathogen. But all too many dining establishments continue to use them.
The QR code, like much technological, er, progress of the past decade, is designed to reduce or remove contact with others. Some actually think this makes eating out more enjoyable — or at least cuts down on labor. As one business-to-business site promoting QR codes’ use puts it, “The customer no longer needs to share menus or perform interactions with waiters or waitresses,” adding, “it boosts convenience massively, making dining a more pleasurable experience for everybody.”
Source: The Washington Post
The Internet Communities That Love Watching People Die
The past decade has seen a boom in true crime content, with just about every lurid historical transgression you could name being explored in documentaries and podcasts, and dramatised in film. Endless thought and cultural navelgazing has been dedicated to understanding what it is about the format that viewers find so endlessly compelling, and whether our fixation on violent crime might create ethical problems.
The internet in the 2010s may have shed some of its earlier frontier weirdness, but that doesn’t mean the audience for violent content has gone away. Longstanding forums continue to provide a place for people to share some of the worst, most violent content the internet has to offer, and the ubiquity of smartphones has ensured a steady supply. Documenting Reality, which promises in its tagline that “there are some things you just can’t unsee”, still hosts numerous subforums where its users share and discuss photos and videos of autopsies, accidents and dead celebrities, and analyse bits of visceral true crime ephemera like 9-1-1 dispatch calls.
Source: Vice
A ‘stock’ market for animals? Idea aims to protect threatened species.
They call it a “species stock market” — a concept that works much like the regular stock market, but with animals instead of money.
For example, they could assign a high “stock price” to a species such as bees, which have been referred to as the most important living beings on Earth. The price of bees would then fluctuate as humans make “purchases” based on their activities.
“We argue that the most realistic and tangible way out of the looming biodiversity crisis is to put a price tag on species and thereby a cost to actions that compromise them,” Koljalg says.
Source: Washington Post
Meanwhile…
“Is it a sound? If so, is it music? Is music the word I mean?
“Is it supersonic? When will it stop?
“What's coming?”
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Ned Mudd resides in Alabama where he engages in interspecies communication, rock collecting, and frequent cloud watching. He is the author of The Adventures of Dink and DVD (a space age comedy). Some of Ned’s best friends are raccoons.