All posts tagged: Bridging

Bridging the Gap from Here to Your Future Self

Bridging the Gap from Here to Your Future Self

Published by Jenni Sidey

As you think about the person you are now, the chances are you built it from your memories of the past. The camera app on your phone pushes out photos of you over past years, sometimes stretching into a couple of decades. You are reminded of past events that you may have let slip away from memory, and as the images flip by, your connection to your former self only gains in strength. But what about the future? Obviously, you can’t see into the future the way you see into the past, but have you ever thought about where life is taking you to get from here to there? You know logically that you will be the same person you are now as you project into the coming years, but the foggier and less certain future vision can make this a challenging exercise. Projection into the Future and Your Sense of Self According to new research by Karlstad University’s Jonas Blom and colleagues (2026), the ability to envision the future could be highly valuable as …

From Political Polarization to Bridging Divides

From Political Polarization to Bridging Divides

Published by Jenni Sidey

Celniker, J. B., & Ditto, P. H. (2024). Of preferences and priors: Motivated reasoning in partisans’ evaluations of scientific evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 127(5), 986–1011. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000417 Dashtgard, P., Bates, L., Pressman, E., Russell, W., Gebbia-Richards, D., Hughes, B., & Miller-Idriss, C. (2021). Empowered to intervene: An impact report on the SPLC/PERIL guide to youth radicalization. Southern Poverty Law Center & Polarization and extremism Research Innovation Lab. https://www.splcenter.org/peril-assessments-impact Dashtgard, P., Russell, W., White, K., Pressman, E., Thorne, S. R., Hughes, B., & Miller-Idriss, C. (2022). Building resilient and inclusive communities of knowledge. Lumina Foundation. https://perilresearch.com/resource/brick-building-resilient-inclusive-communities-of-knowledge/ Dashtgard, P., Hughes, B., Miller-Idriss, C., Pressman, E., Russell, W., Thorne, S., White, K., Bates, L., & Flanagan, A. (2022). Building networks and addressing harm: A community guide to online youth radicalization – resources for trusted adults, mentors and community leaders. Southern Poverty Law Center.https://www.splcenter.org/peril-community-guide Ditto, P. H. (2009). Passion, reason, and necessity: A quantity-of-processing view of motivated reasoning. In T. Bayne & J. Fernández (Eds.), Delusion and self-deception: Affective and motivational influences on belief formation (pp. 23–53). …

Bridging the operational AI gap

Bridging the operational AI gap

Published by skeptic

The transformational potential of AI is already well established. Enterprise use cases are building momentum and organizations are transitioning from pilot projects to AI in production. Companies are no longer just talking about AI; they are redirecting budgets and resources to make it happen. Many are already experimenting with agentic AI, which promises new levels of automation. Yet, the road to full operational success is still uncertain for many. And, while AI experimentation is everywhere, enterprise-wide adoption remains elusive. Without integrated data and systems, stable automated workflows, and governance models, AI initiatives can get stuck in pilots and struggle to move into production. The rise of agentic AI and increasing model autonomy make a holistic approach to integrating data, applications, and systems more important than ever. Without it, enterprise AI initiatives may fail. Gartner predicts over 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by 2027 due to cost, inaccuracy, and governance challenges. The real issue is not the AI itself, but the missing operational foundation. DOWNLOAD THE REPORT To understand how organizations are structuring …

The Download: A bid to treat blindness, and bridging the internet divide

The Download: A bid to treat blindness, and bridging the internet divide

Published by skeptic

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The first human test of a rejuvenation method will begin “shortly” Life Biosciences, a small Boston startup founded by Harvard professor and life-extension evangelist David Sinclair, has won FDA approval to proceed with the first targeted attempt at age reversal in human volunteers. The company plans to try to treat eye disease with a radical rejuvenation concept called “reprogramming” that has recently attracted hundreds of millions in investment for Silicon Valley firms like Altos Labs, New Limit, and Retro Biosciences, backed by many of the biggest names in tech. Read the full story. —Antonio Regalado Stratospheric internet could finally start taking off this year Today, an estimated 2.2 billion people still have either limited or no access to the internet, largely because they live in remote places. But that number could drop this year, thanks to tests of stratospheric airships, uncrewed aircraft, and other high-altitude platforms for internet delivery. Although Google shuttered its …

A language course is reviving Moroccan Jewish culture and bridging Middle East divides

A language course is reviving Moroccan Jewish culture and bridging Middle East divides

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Growing up in Fez, Morocco, Yona Elfassi was always aware of the history of the city, which has been a center of culture, learning and spirituality since the ninth century. Home to great minds such as the 12th-century philosopher and jurist Ibn Rushd and his contemporary, the physician and codifier of Jewish law Maimonides, the city was shaped by Jewish, Arab, Amazigh, Spanish and French cultures. These influences left a deep imprint on Elfassi, 37. “In my family there were (many) different languages — Moroccan Arabic, French, Hebrew at the synagogue, and my dad also speaks Amazigh, Berber,” said Elfassi. Music, too, was a constant presence — from Andalusian to Flamenco, to Moroccan classic, to Moroccan chaabi popular, to Berber music,” he said. “We weren’t a family of professional musicians, but we were a family that lived with music.” As a Jewish resident of Morocco, Elfassi belongs to a tiny demographic, as 99% of Jews of Moroccan heritage today live elsewhere. After major emigrations in the 20th century, only around 2,500 Jews remain …

Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind: Bridging the Gap

Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind: Bridging the Gap

Published by Jenni Sidey

In a recent episode of the Mind Matters podcast, hosts Robert J. Marks and Brian Krouse talked to Dr. Joseph Green*, a computational neuroscientist and contributor to the book Minding the Brain (2023). Their discussion centered not on the technical details of neuroscience, but on the deeper philosophical questions it raises  especially the claim that we are nothing but our brains. The result was an illuminating conversation about what neuroscience can explain, what it can’t, and how philosophy fits into the picture. Neuroscience works with what it can measure — but that’s not everything Dr. Green acknowledges that neuroscience, like all sciences, relies on tools. These tools measure what is physical and detectable: electrical spikes, chemical signals, neurotransmitters, and neural circuits. Because these tools focus on the material aspects of the brain, scientists naturally spend most of their time studying neurons and their activity. But there is a catch. The ability to measure something does not automatically make it the whole story. Green argues that neuroscience has developed a “flattened” view of the brain — …