Technology

In Islamic cosmology there are three orders of intelligent beings. Angels, made of light, have no choice but obedience. Humans, formed from clay, carry the burden of free will. Between them live the djinn, created from “the smokeless flame of fire.” The djinn are, in many ways, like people, but they categorically are not people – from their constitution to their morality. Like the Good Neighbors of British and Celtic tradition, the djinn exist in parallel to us. They think and decide, marry and worship, and are fallible, just as we are. The Qur’an describes some as believers and others as not: “And among us are Muslims [in submission to Allah], and among us arethe unjust.

Competition between the US and China will shape the 21st century, but have the Chinese already leap-frogged the Americans? It looks as if they might have done. Since China opened itself up to trade and market economics under Deng Xiaoping almost 50 years ago, it has been furiously chasing the US in terms of economic and technological development – and it’s been catching up, fast. We can prove just how fast by measuring its innovation and output per capita. The US has about a quarter of China’s population, so if both countries were at a similar level of economic and technological development, one would expect China to produce roughly four times the number of scientific breakthroughs as America, four times the number of physicists and AI engineers and so on.

In 2002, a researcher named Eliezer Yudkowsky ran a thought experiment where an artificial intelligence was trapped in a box and had to persuade a human to let it out. This was before you could have a real conversation with a machine, so the AI was played by someone using an online chat program. The gatekeepers were warned that the “AI” was dangerous to humanity. It had only two hours to win its freedom – and nothing of value to offer in return. Despite all that, at least two of the human gatekeepers chose to open the box. Yudkowsky has since become the leading prophet of AI doom. He and a co-author, Nate Soares, have just published a book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.

Russia is playing a dangerous game in space. Despite its history it’s a declining space power, having abandoned many of its long-term projects due to lack of money and technology. It effectively crippled much of its space activity when it attacked Ukraine, which was the source of many of its high-tech components. This year has seen its lowest launch rate since 1961 – the year Yuri Gagarin became the first person to go into space. Yet significantly, three of Russia’s eight orbital launches this year (the US has launched more than 100) could be potential anti-satellite weapons. On May 23, Russia launched the Cosmos 2588 satellite from the Plesetsk launch site situated 500 miles north of Moscow. The Cosmos designation is a general term used to obscure the satellites’ purpose.

What comes to mind when you think about the maximum amount of love a parent can have for their child?For me, I think of Dick Hoyt pushing his son Rick, who had cerebral palsy, in a wheelchair through the Ironman World Championship course. I think of the parents of Nick Vujicic, born without arms or legs, raising Nick with confidence, and cheering him on as he became an international motivational speaker. I think of the mother of a child with Down Syndrome, choosing each day to recognize the absolute gift of their child. I think of the parent at the dinner table comforting a child upset by a ‘C’ on their report card.Noor Siddiqui, founder of Orchid Biosciences, sees things differently.