Incentivizing innovation by funding play: “Creative Grants” instead of UBI “The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.”Stephen Hawking, Dec. 1 2016Tweet There has been a lot of serious talk about implementing UBI (universal basic income), especially now in the wake of the pandemic and rising automation. But already since the early 2010s there has been a divergence between productivity and employment – between wealth and work – in what…
Did you ever wonder what “blackbird” was in German? Now you can never forget! Amsel app, now available for free until Jan. 2022 at https://amselapp.com What began as a way to improve digital teaching online via Zoom resulted in a viable voice training app that everyone in the English- and German-speaking world can use. The free version for iPhone/iPad and Android devices is now available! Check the amselapp.com website for the right link for your smartphone. Thanks to the grant from the German project Neustart Kultur, coordinated by the Deutscher Musikrat, my new app remains free to all users around…
This past election was a much bigger surprise to me than any other. According to the media (at least the ones that reach me), it shouldn’t have been a close race at all – but 74 million Americans to 70 million Americans hardly constitutes the landslide win that was forecast in all of the major media outlets. I take this shock as evidence of a further descent into the rabbit hole of my own private echo chambers, which I thought I had woken up from four years ago already and was well forewarned about. Mostly I think I was angry…