Hi, Robot: machines take over at China’s Asian Games
From autonomous bug zappers to android pianists and driverless ice-cream trucks, machines rule the world — at least at China’s Asian Games. The Games open Saturday after a one-year delay…
Rise of the machines
IN ancient Greek tragedies, as the villain was about to triumph over the protagonist, a plot device was sometimes employed to force the story towards a happy ending. This device…
The rise of the machines
The future is both scary and fascinating. If it wasn’t, its many depictions would never have caught our fancy – in early mystical traditions, in works of fiction, in Hollywood…
Machines and men
The recent advances in artificial intelligence are truly mindboggling. Dr Ray Kurzweil, an authority on futuristic thinking, predicts that by 2045, “the state of singularity” will be reached and machines…
Monster machines fan out on US farms facing slow sow
With the US spring planting season off to a historically slow start, an increasing number of farmers are counting on powerful tools to catch up: Monster machines that sow 36…
Capital suggestion, Killing machines
Obama has lost big. With 189 Democrats left in the House Obama can do little – if anything at all – as far as domestic policy is concerned. In the…
Dealing with Covid-19 in Pakistan
The metaphor “black swan” was used in Roman literature to express impossibility as it was perceived that swans were always white. Black swans were discovered in Australia in 1697, and…
Increasing productivity
Have we not had enough of the Western model of development? Can we change gears at this point in time or are the times bad. In public service whenever one…
A fatal flaw
AS the dust settles on the change in government in Islamabad, existing answers as to why these events unfolded in the manner and speed that they did remain unsatisfactory. There’s…
For God’s sake, stop the war
WE are now into the month of Ramazan, a period of piety and self-reflection for Muslims, though one can’t tell that by the unravelling of the mayhem in Pakistan. It…
