
Monthly Archive October 2018


Peaceful code of conduct sparks rage in Silicon Valley
Hi tech firm’s code, based on ancient monks’ practice, deemed “just disgusting”
Is Technology Neutral?
Or does it change our world whether we like it or not?
There is no universal moral machine
The “Moral Machine” project aimed at righteous self-driving cars revealed stark differences in global valuesWhatever the causes of cultural differences, Brendan Dixon thinks that the Moral Machine presents mere caricatures of moral problems anyway. “The program reduces everything to a question of who gets hurt. There are no shades of gray or degrees of hurt. It is, as is so often with computers, simply black or white, on or off. None of the details that make true moral decisions hard and interesting remain.”
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Yes, your brain is a machine—if you choose to see it that way
As a Nobel Prize physicist pointed out, our method of study determines what we learnAnil Seth, a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, gave a TED talk recently (linked below) in which he asserted that “the combined activity of many billions of neurons—each one a tiny biological machine—is generating our conscious experience…” So, is your brain really a biological “machine”? Or is that just an analogy, like saying that a restaurant kitchen is a “hive” of activity? If so, how good is the analogy? Why do we select the analogy of a “machine” rather than a different one? It’s an important question, as we will see, because the questions we ask of nature constrain the answers we obtain. A machine is an artifact. It is a human-built assembly of Read More ›

Who assumes moral responsibility for self-driving cars?
Can we discuss this before something happens and everyone is outsourcing the blame?
How AI could run the world
Its killer apps, in physicist Max Tegmark's tale, include a tsunami of "message" films
How a Computer Programmer looks at DNA
And finds it to be "amazing" code
Self-driving vehicles are just around the corner
On the other side of a vast chasm…
Could AI write novels?
George Orwell thought so, as long as no thinking was involved
Brain hacks
Do we understand the brain better if we see it as a computer?
How Do Bitcoins Work Anyway?
And what's their future? A roundup for non-geeksEverywhere these days one hears people foretelling the fortunes of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin—like so many fairies, good and bad, wishing around a cradle. Most people, including New Yorker staff writer Nick Paumgarten, have hoped to just avoid the scene, partly because few enthusiasts can even explain what the cryptocurrencies are or why they exist. But Paumgarten dove in and his recent long form article offers helpful explanations along with illuminating profiles of digital currency pioneers. First, why? Bitcoin and Ethereum enthusiasts want, in Paumgarten’s words, “a better, decentralized version of the World Wide Web—a Web 3.0—more in keeping with the Internet’s early utopian promise than with the invidious, monopolistic hellscape it has become. They want to seize back the tubes, and Read More ›

Guess what? You already own a self-driving car
Tech hype hits the stratosphere
Would Google be happier if America were run more like China?
This might be a good time to ask
Facebook’s old motto was “Move fast and break things”
With the current advertising scandal, it might be breaking itself
AI computer chips made simple
The artificial intelligence chips that run your computer are not especially difficult to understand
The $60 Billion-Dollar Medical Data Market is Coming Under Scrutiny
As a patient, you do not own the data and are not as anonymous as you think
Does information theory support design in nature?
William Dembski makes a convincing case, using accepted information theory principles relevant to computer science
George Gilder explains what’s wrong with “Google Marxism”
In discussion with Mark Levin, host of Life, Liberty & Levin