Robot Consciousness: Physics and Metaphysics Here and Abroad

Interest has been renewed in the study of consciousness, both theoretical and applied, following developments in 20th and early 21st-century logic, metamathematics, computer science, and the brain sciences. In this evolving narrative, I explore several theoretical questions about the types of artificial intelligence and offer several conjectures about how they affect possible future developments in this exceptionally transformative field of research. I also address the practical significance of the advances in artificial intelligence in view of the cautions issued by prominent scientists, politicians, and ethicists about the possible dangers of such sufficiently advanced general intelligence, including by implication the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Shareholder Value and Auditor Independence

This Article questions the practice of framing problems concerning auditors\u27 professional responsibility inside a principal-agent paradigm. If professional independence is to be achieved, auditors cannot be enmeshed in agency relationships with the shareholders of their audit clients. As agents, the auditors by definition become subject to the principal\u27s control and cannot act independently. For the same reason, auditors\u27 duties should be neither articulated in the framework of corporate law fiduciary duty, nor conceived relationally at all. These assertions follow from an inquiry into the operative notion of the shareholder-beneficiary. The Article unpacks the notion of the shareholder and tells a particularized story about the shareholder interest. The exercise complicates the agency description, highlighting multiple and unstable shareholder demands that displace the unitary model of the shareholder usually brought to bear. This fragmented and volatile model of the shareholder provides neither a basis for articulating a coherent set of instructions respecting aggressive accounting nor for imposing conservative accounting. The Article concludes that legal positivism provides a more appropriate conceptual framework. Auditor duties should be conceived in formal rather than relational terms, with fidelity going to the rules and the system that auditors apply rather than to a client interest

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

Narrative expectations in financial forecasting

How do people form expectations about the future? We use amateur and expert investors’ expectations about financial asset prices to study this question. Three experiments contrast the rational expectations assumption from neoclassical economics (investors forecast according to neoclassical financial theory) against two psychological theories of expectation-formation—behaviorally-informed expectations (investors understand empirical market anomalies and expect these anomalies to occur) and narrative expectations (investors use narrative thinking to predict future prices). Whereas neoclassical financial theory maintains that past public information cannot be used to predict future prices, participants used company performance information revealed before a base price quotation to project future price trends after that quotation (Experiment 1), contradicting rational expectations. Importantly, these projections were stronger when information concerned predictions about a company’s future performance rather than actual data about its past performance, suggesting that people not only rely on financially irrelevant (but narratively relevant) information for making predictions, but erroneously impose temporal order on that information. These biased predictions had downstream consequences for asset allocation choices (Experiment 2) and these choices were driven in part by affective reactions to the company performance news (Experiment 3). There were some mild effects of expertise, but overall the effects of narrative appear to be consistent across all levels of expertise studied, including professional financial analysts. We conclude by discussing the prospects for a narrative theory of choice that provide new micro-foundational insights about economic behavior

An Exploration of Baby Boomer Mass Retirement Effects on Information Systems Organizations

The potential knowledge loss from Baby Boomer generation employee retirements can negatively affect information systems organizations. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenology study was to explore the lived experiences of the leaders and managers of information systems organizations as they tried to maintain operational continuity after Baby Boomer worker retirements. The impact of this issue was the operational continuity after the Baby Boomer worker retirement. The social impact of this issue was the knowledge loss events that might result in business loss or even bankruptcy. McElroy\u27s knowledge life cycle model was the conceptual framework for this study that included knowledge production and knowledge integration processes within a feedback loop. The lived experiences of 20 knowledgeable participants who had experienced institutional knowledge loss from retired Baby Boomer generation employees were captured through purposeful sampling. Data were collected through individual interviews using either face-to-face or a web conferencing tool such as Skype and analyzed through a modified Van Kaam. Five themes were identified: business climate, delivery practices, work processes, camaraderie, and management response. Significant attributes that added to the body of knowledge were workplace navigation, alternate focus, and outsourcing management. The results of the study may enable organizations to be better able to understand and manage the Baby Boomer knowledge loss effects and subsequently create systems to help maintain their competitive edge and avoid knowledge loss that might result in business loss or even bankruptcy

Complexity perspectives and investment decisions

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates investment theory in the light of complexity theory. These insights from diverse fields contain powerful images, metaphors and ways of thinking that allows one to seek new ways of comprehending the nature of the economy and therefore the nature of investment and the related issues of uncertainty and decision making. Complexity theory views the economy as being a dynamic, continuously adaptive, nonlinear system. This is in contrast to traditional or classical economic theory that views the economy as being a simple, linear, equilibrium deterministic system. This thesis is a conceptual study exploring the implications of a complexity worldview for investment decisions by looking at the nature and characteristics of complexity and then overlaying it on the characteristics of the economy. It is argued that complexity is caused by three elements: the structure of the system, human behaviour and exogenous factors. Thereafter follows an analysis of how investment decisions are made in the light of complexity by illustrating the investment models of two very successful, yet different investors: Warren Buffet and George Soros. Buffet’s model hinges on value. He realises that emergent phenomenon driven by irrational behaviour of investors leads to intrinsic values of shares to differ widely from perceived value. When quoted or perceived values are low than it is advisable to purchase as you have a margin of safety. Over the long term the market recognises the real value of the share. He tries to ignore the vagaries of the market and to focus on fundamentals. His list of fundamentals include; the franchise value of the company, quality of management and industry dynamics. George Soros in contrast utilises emergence patterns to locate potential investments. His model is that systems are flawed, human thinking and decision making is flawed and the interaction of the two lead to perturbations and oscillations. He focuses in trying to understand the flaw in systems and in human behaviour and to find some kind of pattern that he could utilise to make a profit. It is shown that both investment models can be understood from a complexity perspective and that these two investors built aspects from complexity into their decision models.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die tesis ondersoek investeringsteorie in die lig van kompleksiteitsteorie. Met die hulp van metafore en insigte vanuit kompleksiteitsdenke word gesoek na nuwe maniere om die aard van die mark en investering verwante aspekte van onsekerheid en besluitneming te verstaan. Die kompleksiteitsperspektief sien die ekonomie as’n dinamiese en aanpassende nie-lineêre sisteem. Dit word gedoen deur die implikasies wat kompleksiteit vir investeringsbesluite inhou konseptueel te ondersoek. Die aard en eienskappe van komplekse sisteme word verduidelik en dan op die ekonomie toegepas. Daar word geargumenteer dat kompleksiteit deur drie elemente veroorsaak word: die struktuur van die sisteem, menslike gedrag en eksogene faktore. Daarna word die praktyk van investeringsbesluite geanaliseer in terme van kompleksiteit duer investeringsmodelle van twee suksesvolle, maar uiteenlopende, investeerders te ondersoek, naamlik Warren Buffet en George Soros. Buffet se model draai rondom waarde. Hy sien die irrasionele gedrag van investeerders as ‘n ontvouende fenomeen wat lei tot ‘n gaping tussen intrinsieke en verwagte waarde. Sy investering word gebaseer op die aanname dat oor die langer termyn die mark die intrinsieke waarde herken. Hy ignoreer dus korttermyn skommelinge in die verwagte waarde en fokus op die fundamentele, waaronder die maanwaarde van die besigheid, die kwaliteit van die bestuur, en industrie-dinamika tel. Soros se model daarenteen gebruik ontvouende patrone en potensiële investeringsgeleenthede te ontbloot. Sy model is dat sisteme inherente teenstrydighede het as ook menslike gedrag en besluitneming. Dit lei tot ossilasies en versteurings. Sy fokus is gerig daarop om hierdie versteurings in die sisteem tot voordeel aan te wend. Daar word getoon hoedat beide investeringsmodelle vanuit ‘n kompleksiteitsperspektief verstaan kan word en dat die twee investeerders sulke aspekte in hulle investeringsbesluite inbou

NASA Technology Plan 1998

This NASA Strategic Plan describes an ambitious, exciting vision for the Agency across all its Strategic Enterprises that addresses a series of fundamental questions of science and research. This vision is so challenging that it literally depends on the success of an aggressive, cutting-edge advanced technology development program. The objective of this plan is to describe the NASA-wide technology program in a manner that provides not only the content of ongoing and planned activities, but also the rationale and justification for these activities in the context of NASA's future needs. The scope of this plan is Agencywide, and it includes technology investments to support all major space and aeronautics program areas, but particular emphasis is placed on longer term strategic technology efforts that will have broad impact across the spectrum of NASA activities and perhaps beyond. Our goal is to broaden the understanding of NASA technology programs and to encourage greater participation from outside the Agency. By relating technology goals to anticipated mission needs, we hope to stimulate additional innovative approaches to technology challenges and promote more cooperative programs with partners outside NASA who share common goals. We also believe that this will increase the transfer of NASA-sponsored technology into nonaerospace applications, resulting in an even greater return on the investment in NASA

Law Informs Code: A Legal Informatics Approach to Aligning Artificial Intelligence with Humans

We are currently unable to specify human goals and societal values in a way that reliably directs AI behavior. Law-making and legal interpretation form a computational engine that converts opaque human values into legible directives. "Law Informs Code" is the research agenda embedding legal knowledge and reasoning in AI. Similar to how parties to a legal contract cannot foresee every potential contingency of their future relationship, and legislators cannot predict all the circumstances under which their proposed bills will be applied, we cannot ex ante specify rules that provably direct good AI behavior. Legal theory and practice have developed arrays of tools to address these specification problems. For instance, legal standards allow humans to develop shared understandings and adapt them to novel situations. In contrast to more prosaic uses of the law (e.g., as a deterrent of bad behavior through the threat of sanction), leveraged as an expression of how humans communicate their goals, and what society values, Law Informs Code. We describe how data generated by legal processes (methods of law-making, statutory interpretation, contract drafting, applications of legal standards, legal reasoning, etc.) can facilitate the robust specification of inherently vague human goals. This increases human-AI alignment and the local usefulness of AI. Toward society-AI alignment, we present a framework for understanding law as the applied philosophy of multi-agent alignment. Although law is partly a reflection of historically contingent political power - and thus not a perfect aggregation of citizen preferences - if properly parsed, its distillation offers the most legitimate computational comprehension of societal values available. If law eventually informs powerful AI, engaging in the deliberative political process to improve law takes on even more meaning.Comment: Forthcoming in Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, Volume 2