BIG Exclusives

Artificial intelligence governance is often described in terms of principles. Fairness, accountability, transparency, and safety have become the dominant language through which organizations signal responsible deployment. These principles appear in policy frameworks, regulatory proposals, and corporate commitments across jurisdictions. Yet the operational reality of AI deployment reveals a persistent and widening gap between declared ethics and executed decisions. The central issue is not the absence of ethical frameworks, but the conditions under which those frameworks...

Alzheimer's disease is one of the leading causes of death among adults age 65 and older. While it is widely reported that the Alzheimer’s mortality rates are increasing, less attention is paid to how and why the recorded death rates change over time. This article analyzes Alzheimer’s mortality trends using state-level mortality data obtained from CDC Wonder, with a focus on California, Texas, and Oregon. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, a...

The Iranian flashpoint did more than test missiles and guidance systems. It accelerated a deeper reconfiguration of global energy flows, where liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States has quietly displaced Russian pipeline gas in Europe, oil sanctions have reshaped buyer alliances, and control over both hydrocarbons and critical minerals has become the scaffolding for an emerging order. I suggest this is the largest externality shell game since carbon credits. The public narrative spun...

What a difference a year makes.  The world has woken up to the game-changing effect drones, often now powered by artificial intelligence or advanced software, are having on modern warfare. In my article last year, I postulated that “sensor to sensor” warfare was soon to be the new norm. A major shift from “eye to eye” or human-to-human battlefields, to machines fighting machines, whether on land, sea or in the air.  No longer it is...

Prospective 2036 government-multi-stakeholder press release “Today, Canada celebrates an important milestone – 20 years of compassionate care! Following broad consultation with ethicists, families, clinicians, and equity partners, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) has been expanded to include mature minors experiencing profound existential distress from anticipated future life frictions, including projected housing insecurity, climate anxiety, and intergenerational economic burden. Parental consent remains encouraged, but is not required where capacity is demonstrated. This extension upholds autonomy, reduces...

Generation Z (born 1997-2012) connects energy production and consumption with climate responsibility and their own values. Many see the energy transition as an opportunity for new technologies and greater global stability. For Gen Z, energy is more than just an industrial resource. However – and we are obviously generalizing – a desire for faster progress makes them susceptible to believing in technically or economically infeasible approaches. Many Gen Zs know that energy is central to...

Proponents of the idea that we (humanity, the biosphere, the Earth) are experiencing a climate crisis hold that our only salvation is to drastically reduce anthropogenic (human-made) greenhouse gas emissions – with the ideal solution being “net zero” emissions. Some even appear to feel that net zero will return global climates to some ideal condition where bad weather events, forest fires, biodiversity loss (and maybe even Donald Trump) are minimized or eliminated. Over the past...

Most enterprise AI failures are commonly attributed to weak models, insufficient computational infrastructure, unrealistic executive expectations, or poor implementation strategy. Across healthcare, finance, insurance, government, and critical infrastructure sectors, however, a different operational reality is increasingly emerging. Many organizations attempting to deploy AI at scale are discovering that their greatest vulnerability is not the model itself, but the condition of the underlying data environment upon which the system depends. This realization is arriving later than...

The Iranian flashpoint does not merely test missiles, air defences, and proxy networks. It accelerates the shift from human-paced warfare to machine-speed conflict. Striving to pierce the dense information fog, I wrote of the growing influence of battlefield lies, fellow BIG Media contributor Grant Wilde documented how intelligent machines are taking over on the front lines, and we shared a CNN piece on the United States’ urgent push for laser weapons. Autonomous systems, AI-driven targeting, and...

BIG Media boss Rob Driscoll asked me why I had not given him any articles lately, and I said I was out of ideas! Knowing that I am an avid guitar player, he suggested an article on musical instruments. That was a bit too general a topic to tackle, but it did motivate me to produce an article on my favourite instrument, the guitar. Like most guitar players I know, I have a large collection...