Author: Conor Boyle

Law graduate Trinity College Dublin 2017; Editorial & Marketing at Intelligence Squared. All views expressed here are my own! If you'd like to write for The Conversation Room email: boylec4@tcd.ie
Progress

Do the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks?

The discussion around Artificial Intelligence (AI) can sound a lot like Brexit. It’s coming but we don’t know when. It could destroy jobs but it could create more. There’s even questions about sovereignty, democracy and taking back control. Yet even the prospect of a post Brexit Britain led by Boris “fuck business” Johnson doesn’t conjure the same level of collective anxiety as humanity’s precarious future … Continue reading Do the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks?

Conor Boyle19 Comments
politics

Why Fascism Is So Tempting

(Image: Sky News)  Have we forgotten what fascism means? Today calling someone a “fascist” is  more an insulting slur than a description of one’s political ideology. In a recent speech historian and author Yuval Noah Harari argued that too often is fascism confused with nationalism. Harari argues that nationalism has been one of the most benevolent ideologies in human history. Nations are communities built up … Continue reading Why Fascism Is So Tempting

Conor Boyle11 Comments
Articles

Why News And The Internet Don’t Mix

(Image: Steve Cutts) The way in which we consume information determines how we interpret it. In his seminal work “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winning behavioural psychologist  describes how two basic systems govern the way we think. We have a primal ‘system one’ way of thinking which is fast, impulsive and emotional. We also have a ‘system two’ form of thinking which is slow, deliberative … Continue reading Why News And The Internet Don’t Mix

Conor Boyle10 Comments
Articles, mental health

Selfie: How We Became So Self Obsessed

We live in strange times. A generation of selfies and self harm. We create edited online personas of people seemingly living perfect lives. Yet behind the screens insecurity, vanity and depression are the defining characteristics of our culture. People absorb culture like sponges. Every time we open our phones we internalize the competitive game of likes, retweets and follows as we strive to reach the … Continue reading Selfie: How We Became So Self Obsessed

Conor Boyle5 Comments
Europe

There is No Anti-Elite

“If you believe you are a citizen of the world you are a citizen of nowhere”   Theresa May condescendingly cackled as a rapturous applause erupted in the hall of the 2017 Conservative Party conference. No longer was the Prime Minister going to tolerate the smug, cosmopolitan elite who spend their summers in San Francisco and winters in the Andorran alpine sneering down with disgust … Continue reading There is No Anti-Elite

Conor Boyle5 Comments
politics

Why Universities Are Just A Corporate Conveyor Belt

A Career Fair is a microcosm. A dizzying snapshot into the absurd world of work. Fake smiles, branded ‘gifts’ and the unnaturally perky trainee enlightening you how his internship last summer really gave him an insight into “the culture of the firm” and explaining how he is now “making a global impact” working with multinationals seeking to “restructure their taxes more efficiently.”   The hollow atmosphere and … Continue reading Why Universities Are Just A Corporate Conveyor Belt

Conor Boyle16 Comments
blockchain

How Cryptocurrencies Are Building A New Internet

Author:     Henry Benjamin of SkyCoin   At present, no one knows how the FCC plan to roll out their unwelcome Net Neutrality Repeal. Nor does anyone know how it will affect end users and companies who might have conflicts of interest with large Internet Service Providers (ISP’s). Whatever way it turns out, we know there are going to be changes in the way we … Continue reading How Cryptocurrencies Are Building A New Internet

Conor Boyle4 Comments