Monthly Archive August 2019
A simple triangle can disprove materialism
Conventional descriptions of material processes do not help much when we are trying to account for abstract thought
A Closer Look at Google’s Search Engine Bias
If Google’s CEO honestly believes that there is no political bias, that is, in itself, a big part of the problem
What Others Are Saying About the New Google Insider’s Revelations
The documents' authenticity is not in dispute. What to do about them is another matter
Whistleblower: Google Told Cops To Do a “Wellness Check” on Him
He can be seen doing a sort of perp walk on the video; some portions transcribed hereIn the documents Vorhies unearthed, Google seemed to be "intending to scope the information landscape so that they could create their own version of what was objectively true."
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Is Google a Cult? Or Does It Just Act That Way?
Project Veritas announces that a new rebel Googler has sent nearly 1000 documents on algorithm bias to the DOJWhile we prepare a news story on Zach Vorhies' revelations, it may be worth asking why one of the world’s largest companies has developed what appears to be the atmosphere of a political cult.
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Fan Tries Programming AI Jazz, Gets Lots and Lots of AI…
Jazz is spontaneous, but spontaneous noise is not jazzAs Gioia says, jazz depends on the “personality of the individual musician.” And the blindspot of AI creativity is: There’s no one home.
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A Silicon Valley Insider Asks the Awkward Questions
Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, speaking at COSM in October, has a history of challenging Valley orthodoxiesHis question, “How can Google use the rhetoric of ‘borderless’ benefits to justify working with the country whose ‘Great Firewall’ has imposed a border on the internet itself?”, is timely. China’s government uses high tech for, among other things, sophisticated racial profiling.
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Elephants Who Fly — or Become “Persons” — Are Magic
Okay, it's impossible. But then why do thinkers who disbelieve the one believe the other?For decades, researchers were transfixed with the idea of humanizing great apes by raising them among humans and teaching them language. Emerging from the ruins and recriminations of the collapse, philosophy prof Don Ross has a new idea: Let’s start with elephants instead.
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Why Do Atheists Still Claim Free Will Can’t Exist?
Sam Harris reduces everything to physics but then ignores quantum non-determinismA reader, listening to his podcast with computer scientist Judea Pearl, asks how he can be so sure everything is determined by physical forces. How indeed?
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The Paradox of Luck and Skill
Why did Shane Lowry win the British Open golf championship? Because someone had toIn any competition including academic tests, athletic events, and company management where there is an element of luck that causes performances to be an imperfect measure of ability, there is an important difference between competitions among people with high ability and competitions among people of lesser ability.
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Are Monkeys with Some Human Genes Partly Human?
If they are somewhat smarter than other macaques, do they have minds and souls?In my ongoing dialogue with Querius, I say no; a human is not reducible to a handful of genes.
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Why Was IBM Watson a Flop in Medicine?
Robert J. Marks and Gary S. Smith discuss how the AI couldn’t identify which information in the tsunami of medical literature actually MATTEREDLast year, the IBM Health Initiative laid off a number of people, seemingly due to market disillusionment with the product.
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Why Is DeepMind In Deep Water Financially?
Market analysts are wondering if the money is as smart as the machineIn an all-out botwar with the other tech Bigs, DeepMind could simply be paying top minds not to work for the competition while readying AI tools that pay better than winning at board games. Maybe.
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Whatever Musk says, Don’t Watch Netflix in Your Tesla
He’ll only allow streaming while stopped until “full self-driving is approved by regulators”This is hardly the time to encourage drivers to believe that someday soon, distraction will be okay. Distracted driving claims the lives of roughly nine people per day in the United States.
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New AI Can Create—and Detect—Fake News
But how good is it at either task? We tested some copyWill the predicted tsunami of fake news and advertising make much difference? Possibly, but in ways that might surprise you.
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Self-driving Cars: Following the Money up a Cooling Trail
The market for lithium for electric car batteries is slowingOne way we can assess entrepreneurs’ claims (think Elon Musk) is to ask, what physical components does the product require and how is the market responding?
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We See the Pattern! — But Is It Real?
It’s natural to imagine that a deep significance underlies coincidencesUnfortunately, patterns are not always a source of information. Often, they are a meaningless coincidence like the 7-11 babies this summer.
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Why Some Scientists Think Science Is an Illusion
It’s a useful illusion, they say, but our brains are not really wired to know the facts
In China, high-tech racial profiling is social policy
For an ethnic minority, a physical checkup includes blood samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and voice recordingsThe Chinese government seeks a database of everyone in the country, not only to track individuals but to determine the ethnicity of those who run up against the law.
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