AI Bombing, Identity Theft, Disney UX, Science of Death, and the 3-Body Problem

Weekly Roundup of News in Technology, UX and AI

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Here’s the latest news, resources, and use cases from the world of product, UX, AI and technology. Let’s go:

• 🗣️ Virtual Communication

• 🚁 AI Bombing

• 👨‍💻 Identity Theft

• 🐭 Disney UX

• 👻 Science of Death

• 🪐 3-Body Problem

Podcast

The Rise of Video and the Future of Virtual Communication

Video has become ubiquitous in our communication. From virtual meetings and virtual doctor visits, to social media, virtual events, and live commerce, we expect video everywhere. But the technology that makes this happen isn’t easy, and needs and expectations are changing rapidly. So what does the future hold for our virtual communications? How have we solved these challenges in the past and how will we continue to solve them? How do we think about the UX of virtual communication and video? What should you do if you want to get into design and what communities should you join or create? We explore these questions and many others in this episode.

News and Useful Reads

‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza

We’ve entered the early stages of our own dystopia, where AI is literally facilitating warfare and genocide. What happens when we turn killing decisions over to models we’ve trained? What happens when warfare becomes completely disconnected from humans?

The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes. During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing…

Former University of Iowa Hospital employee used fake identity for 35 years

I think this may be one of the craziest stories I’ve heard recently…

A former University of Iowa Hospital employee pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges that he had been living under another man’s identity since 1988, causing the other man to be falsely imprisoned for identity theft and sent to a mental hospital.

Disney’s 12 principles of animation, exemplified in UX design

Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation, originally a cornerstone for creating compelling traditional animations, serve as an invaluable guide beyond their initial intent. Though these principles were tailored for traditional animation, this article seeks not only to explore their adaptability and application within product design but also aims to offer a guide for designers to consider motion as an important element in crafting digital experiences.

How circadian rhythms affect your workout and your health

This article is about exercise, but as someone who is at a desk all day, I realize that I need to do more to ensure that my circadian rhythms are aligned, meaning getting outside more frequently and getting up more often. A good reminder for all of us.

Light is the most potent external time cue, technically known as a zeitgeber, that aligns circadian rhythms with the outside world. This is what the brain clock likes to follow, and that ultimately influences all kinds of biological processes and behaviors, most notably when we wake up and go to bed.

Other Interesting Finds

The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’

This is a topic that comes up relatively frequently in discussions in our house—what happens when we die? It’s truly the age-old question, and we don’t really know anything. But this article is a fascinating exploration of the science of death, and what we know vs. what we don’t know yet.

But there is something that binds many of these people – the physicalists, the parapsychologists, the spiritualists – together. It is the hope that by transcending the current limits of science and of our bodies, we will achieve not a deeper understanding of death, but a longer and more profound experience of life. That, perhaps, is the real attraction of the near-death experience: it shows us what is possible not in the next world, but in this one.

What is the three-body problem? The chaotic, cosmic mathematics behind the Netflix TV show

I read The Three-Body Problem when it first came out, and loved it. It deals with such fascinating ideas like the three-body problem, but also like the Fermi paradox, quantum mechanics, and interstellar travel. I doubt the Netflix series will do justice to the books, but still exciting to see it come to the screen.

Chaos, in the mathematical sense, does not refer to its common usage of "disarray and disorganisation". Instead, it is often characterised by what mathematicians refer to as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This means that the behaviour of two otherwise identical chaotic systems, initiated with extremely similar (but not exactly identical) initial conditions, will eventually become vastly different from each other.