for W3c validation

Friday Faves is our weekly blog series highlighting a few select pieces from the REG team’s reading lists. You can catch up on past Friday Faves on the archive. 

Scientists developed ‘living robots’ that reproduce

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Jakkii says: I’ve got a few things to share this week, so I’ll keep my commentary relatively brief (for a change!) so you can focus on getting into the content of the articles instead.

This is the type of content I would have loved to share with Nat, though she would undoubtedly have seen it first and be sharing it with me instead. And it would have come, of course, with a well-considered and highly philosophical opinion about the whys and wherefores and the impact on identity – human or otherwise.

The world’s first “living robots” are now capable of something that’s essential to the survival of any species: reproduction.

Known as Xenobots, the organisms use an entirely novel form of biological self-replication, according to new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Initially, it was found that, while they could replicate, they’d die soon after, so the scientists enlisted AI to help them “see their kids grow up”. Aside from the whole idea of a ‘living robot’, let alone one that can reproduce, one thing I found really interesting was the assessment of what the AI came up with as being “non-intuitive” and “not something a human engineer would design”. Now, what that really says about humans vs AI is very much up for discussion, for example, is it really that a human engineer wouldn’t design it, or that the person or people who might either aren’t in engineering or aren’t working on xenobots? But one thing that is fair to say is that it does demonstrate the possibilities of how AI can fill the gap – maybe we don’t need to wait for the person who has a happy accident of observation or happens to see a problem in a unique way, enabling them to find a unique solution. Maybe AI can do that for us – at least in some cases.

Read: https://thenextweb.com/news/living-robots-can-now-reproduce-xenobots-self-replicate

Star Trek creator’s signature will live long and prosper in new NFT

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Jakkii says: Honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss for words on this one.

The NFT’s creators implanted the signature, signed in 1965, into a living bacteria cell in the form of DNA code. As the cell duplicates, it creates new copies of the NFT — over a billion in one night.

From a purely scientific perspective it’s pretty fascinating, and a great reminder of the incredible things we can do these days. But outside that, it just begs the question why? Why do this at all, let alone create it as an NFT? Just because we can? I’m not so sure that means we should. Between this and the reproducing xenobots, where’s Dr Malcolm when we need him??

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Read: https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/30/22810121/star-trek-nft-gene-roddenberry

Revenue NSW’s automated system took fines from people’s bank accounts

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Jakkii says: This is quite an interesting case of the use of automation. The important points here, for me, are in finding it unlawful, saying:

“The mechanism was deemed unlawful because no authorised person engaged in a mental process of reasoning before an order was issued”

and in the call for greater transparency about the use of technology in decision-making, which ought to include the use of algorithms, AI, machine learning and automation. This is particularly relevant, in my view, when it comes to technology employed by the government, generally, but most especially when it relates to issues directly affecting citizens lives, such as in social security, debt collection and enforcement policies and actions. We have a particular responsibility to ensure we consider and protect vulnerable people from the impact of poor policy design and poor technology implementation.

Relatedly, I also found it interesting overall to see this statistic:

“The number of garnishee orders issued by Revenue NSW has leapt from 6905 in the financial year ending 2011, to more than 1.6 million in the year ending 2019.“

That is a phenomenal increase. The article doesn’t make clear what factors are considered to have contributed to this, but it certainly implies (or at least, I have inferred) that employing technology has been a significant contributing factor.

Read: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/revenue-nsw-s-automated-system-took-fines-from-people-s-bank-accounts-20211129-p59d2m.html

At home

this thanksgiving im thankful that Jane Goodall doesn’t have an evil twin named Jane Baddall who teaches the gorillas how to destroy us.

— Skyler Higley (@skyler_higley) November 25, 2021

Jakkii says: it’s December! We’re well and truly on the countdown to the holidays and the end of the year now. While you’re counting down the days, juggling holiday festivities and celebration prep, here are a few things you can read, watch and do from home this week.

• Find out what to add to your reading list next

• Get the lowdown on how to cut yourself some slack during the silly season but still get your work done

• Make time for these 10 tips on finding your ‘sweet spot’ for self-care

• Mesmerise yourself with this collection of 99.9K GIFs

• Stare in awe at these incredible photos of birds from the series ‘Beneath the Bird Feeder’

• Dig out your obscure trivia knowledge for a game online with Isolation Trivia, tonight 7.30pm QLD / 8.30pm NSW/VIC

Friday Fives

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Hybrid workplace and the future of work

• Hybrid workplace awaits the brave new world

• What to know before you take a job in a hybrid workplace

• Organisations need a dynamic approach to teaching people new skills

• How the commercial real estate sector will evolve to support hybrid workplaces of the future

• GetApp future of work survey finds that how employees work—not where—drives satisfaction and retention

Remote work and the digital workplace

• Remote work should be (mostly) asynchronous

• Your intranet should be a little bit messy

• Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

• Microsoft Teams Essentials is a new standalone version for small businesses

• Who is in charge of giving workers the right to disconnect? It’s complicated

Communication, collaboration, engagement, and culture

• Use networks to drive culture change

• How to spot a welcoming culture during your job hunt

• Strengthening weak ties in remote and hybrid workplaces

• How should you measure employee engagement in remote and hybrid work?

• Amid the Great Resignation, curiosity is an important skill for employees, according to new SAS study

Community management, moderation and misinformation

• The secret to great online communities, even on Facebook

• Why the elderly are more susceptible to social media misinformation

• Facebook reveals broad takedown of global disinformation networks, including some tied to anti-vaccine groups and state actors

• Facebook’s race-blind practices around hate speech came at the expense of Black users, new documents show

• Researchers have a method to spot Reddit’s state-backed trolls

Accessibility

• A guide to international web accessibility laws and policies

• 4 common ways companies alienate people with disabilities

• Advocating for accessibility throughout your entire company

• ‘Inclusive design’ has become so widely used that it’s meaningless. That has to change

• [Video] Putting accessibility first for your event

Privacy and data

• Twitter bans posting pictures of ‘private individuals’ against their wishes

• A young Argentine was caught in a cocaine-fueled celebrity scandal; 25 years later, Google won’t let her forget

• Yesterday once more

• Edward Snowden voices concerns on social media about search engines usability and their privacy practices

• Why the metaverse could be a breakthrough in privacy-compliant digital marketing

Big Tech, tech and regulation

• How will the metaverse affect productivity?

• Social media companies could soon be forced to end anonymity for online trolls. But will this stop the trolling?

• Facebook risks meta flop, metaverse developers say

• Small news publishers band together in negotiations with tech giants Google, Facebook

• [Opinion] I like Microsoft Edge. But if it doesn’t get less annoying, I’ll switch again

Social media

• Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names

• It’s time to study the health impacts of TikTok, researchers say

• Gen Z is LinkedIn’s fastest-growing audience

• Love it or hate it, TikTok is changing the music industry

• Reddit introduces new real-time features including typing and comment indicators

Bonus: ‘Digitally literate’ Gen Z and Millennials’ pandemic experience shaped by social media

Extras

south koreans: squid game was hard to watch because it depicts the very real struggle of surviving under capitalism
american youtubers: ok but what if we did it for real https://t.co/pTtVXdsxJ8

— morgan sung (@morgan_sung) November 24, 2021

This is interesting: The Saudi women’s rights activist who found freedom and horror on the internet

Things that make you go hmmm: We can’t ignore the role mental health plays in conspiracy theory beliefs

Space: Incredible timelapse video of one month of the Sun

Podcast: Why the highest paying jobs so rarely go to women

Friday playlist: Songs to sing in the car