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Will Humans Inevitably Turn Faith in AI Into a Religion?

Imagine a future where AI was all-knowing and all-understanding. These are abilities humans have typically ascribed to Gods worthy of worship. Soon, they may also be among the feature set of artificial intelligence. An article in The Walrus takes this possible future to it’s extreme – asking whether there may come a time when AI itself is worshipped … Read more

The Most Popular Non-Obvious Stories of 2022 (Based On Reader Feedback)

Based on this combination of quantitative and qualitative data, here is a partial list of some of the most popular stories of the year, based on what my readers shared.

The First Robot Many People Loved Is Getting a Second Life

Last year in I wrote about a story from WIRED about the unexpectedly real sense of loss that many owners of the Jibo robot were feeling when its parent company announced they would no longer be supporting the social bot. Now another company has acquired the rights and patents to Jibo and have plans for a bold … Read more

How Researchers Trained and Created AI With Psycopathic Tendencies

What happens when you train an AI algorithm only with murderous images from horror films or macabre photos from the Internet? A seriously disturbed AI, as researchers at the MIT Media Lab discovered. The AI, named “Norman” after the lead character from the horror film “Psycho,” reacted disturbingly in image association tests and exhibited severe tendencies toward … Read more

10 Futuristic Ideas Becoming Reality Faster Because Of COVID-19

For the past ten years I’ve been a collector of innovative ideas. When I write about them and interview the people behind them, I know they are far ahead of their industry. Over the past month as our entire culture has been upended by the arrival of the COVID-19 virus, one of positive side effects … Read more

5 Non-Obvious Megatrends Changing Our World In 2020

For the past ten years I have gone through an annual ritual of publishing a book about trends that describe our shifting culture and business environment. Over the past decade, my team and I have identified and written about well over 100 trends covering everything from the rise of the #metoo movement (a trend we … Read more

5 Awesome (And Slightly Scary) Technology Stories You Should Know

Most weeks I tend to focus on stories about our culture, but this week my curation led more consistently toward technology with a wide range of articles about innovations, discoveries and new research. In the stories below you’ll find everything from human-animal embryo research to the cure for baldness. They may awaken your imagination or perhaps … Read more

Hotel Encourages Digital Detox, Cypto Founder Dies With Only Password To $190 million and Why SF Might Ban Facial Recognition | Non-Obvious Insights 02.07.19

The Hotel That Forces You To Take A Digital Detox In Sweden, one hotel has created a stunt designed to encourage you to stay off of Wifi during your stay … by only charging you when you use devices in the room. If you can exhibit self control for the evening in the “Check Out … Read more

Robot Layoffs, Disappearing Street Food & Asymmetrical Jeans | Non-Obvious Insights 01.17.19

Japanese Hotel Has First Round Of Robot Layoffs I first wrote about the Henna hotel, staffed entirely by robots, more than two years ago. It seems that the experimental property in Japan has discovered a hopeful truth: people sometimes prefer people. And so it may also be the first example in history of robots being … Read more

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In addition to Non-Obvious Thinking, Rohit is the author of 10 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.

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