Artificial intelligence will be a symbiosis, not a replacement
Matt Ridley
History shows that technology augments more than displaces My Times column on AI and jobs: In the early 1960s, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there was a disagreement about what computers would achieve. One faction, led by John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky, championed “artificial intelligence”, believing that computers would gradually replace human beings. […]
Why selecting intelligent babies won’t happen
Matt Ridley
Recent findings about intelligence make designer babies less likely My Spectator article in the Christmas edition: Christmas Day marks the birthday of one of the most gifted human beings ever born. His brilliance was of a supernoval intensity, but he was, by all accounts, very far from pleasant company. I refer to Isaac Newton. Would […]
Matt Ridley
The most successful quit-smoking aid is banned from advertising My Times column on Britain’s successful use of electronic cigarettes (vaping) to cut smoking rates: Imagine if Britain led the world in a new electronic industry, both in production and consumption, if independent British manufacturers had a worldwide reputation for innovation and quality, were based […]
Right on plastics and PCBs, wrong on acidification
Matt Ridley
The BBC’s Blue Planet II is superb, but got a few things wrong My Times column on the BBC’s Blue Planet II: Nothing that Hollywood sci-fi screenwriters dream up for outer space begins to rival the beauty and ingenuity of life under water right here. Blue Planet II captured behaviour that was new to science as […]
Minimising the need for trusted third parties
Matt Ridley
Block chains work – and could be transformational My recent (4 December 2017) Times column on bitcoin, block chain and distributed ledgers: The price of a Bitcoin has risen tenfold in ten months. Yet whether and when the bubble will burst is beside the point, which is that Bitcoin works. What I mean by […]
Britain should give the EU £20 billion extra as an act of charity
Matt Ridley
The letter Theresa May should send with the cheque… My Times column on Britain’s “financial settlement” with the European Union: Theresa May reportedly plans to offer about £40 billion of our money in order to bring the European Union to the table to discuss whether it wishes to trade freely with Britain after we leave […]
Matt Ridley
Biotech is urgently needed, economically and environmentally, in Africa My Times column on the urgent need for biotechnology in African agriculture: An even more dangerous foe than Robert Mugabe is stalking Africa. Early last year, a moth caterpillar called the fall armyworm, a native of the Americas, turned up in Nigeria. It has quickly spread […]
Matt Ridley
Local action improves the environment, not more officials My Times column on environmental policy: Michael Gove, the environment secretary, is right to promise higher, not lower, environmental standards once we leave the European Union. Britain has always been a pioneer of environmental policy, and indeed many of our protections pre-date our joining the EU. […]
Supporting wind and solar energy at the expense of the environment
Matt Ridley
A lawsuit reveals a bitter split over renewable energy My Reaction article on the disputes within the green movement: You can always tell when there is a United Nations Climate Conference of the Parties (COP) coming up, because there are any number of carefully timed press releases about how hot it has been or […]
Matt Ridley
We overestimate the impact of innovation in the short term but… My Times column on Amara’s Law: Alongside a great many foolish things that have been said about the future, only one really clever thing stands out. It was a “law” coined by a Stanford University computer scientist and long-time head of the Institute […]
