^{Monthly Archive}November 2022

Working Data Center Full of Rack Servers and Supercomputers, Modern Telecommunications, Artificial Intelligence, Supercomputer Technology Concept.3d rendering,conceptual image.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 14, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Allison Whitten}

So artificial intelligence has its limits?

_{Science writer Allison Whitten explains.} _{News

November 14, 2022

1

Artificial Intelligence}

Thus it turns out. Science writer Allison Whitten explains: Artificial intelligence algorithms cannot keep growing at their current pace. Algorithms like deep neural networks — which are loosely inspired by the brain, with multiple layers of artificial neurons linked to each other via numerical values called weights — get bigger every year. But these days, hardware improvements are no longer keeping pace with the enormous amount of memory and processing capacity required to run these massive algorithms. Soon, the size of AI algorithms may hit a wall. Allison Whitten, “New Chip Expands the Possibilities for AI” at Quanta (November 10, 2022) Funny that never happens with humans. Humans never hit a wall in that way. Whether it’s Albert Einstein or Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
November 14, 2022

Categorized
Global Technology

Tagged
China, Climate change, COSM, economy, Electric vehicles, Global economy, Lithium, petroleum, smart cars}

Are Electric Cars Really the Future?

_{Panelists at the 2022 COSM conference discuss the pros and cons of electric vehicles} _{Peter Biles

November 14, 2022

5

Global Technology}

On November 10th, the COSM conference hosted a special panel on electric vehicles (EVs for short). Brian Mistele, founder and CEO of Inrix, a leading provider of traffic information, car services, and transportation analytics, moderated the discussion. Aside from Mistele, the panel included Howard Hayden, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and editor of The Energy Advocate, Walter Myers, Principal Manager on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-based platform, and Tony Posawatz, an automotive industry pioneer and chief executive of Fisker Automotive. They brought a range of perspectives on the pros and cons of EVs and where the auto industry is heading. Posawatz kicked off the panel by giving a brief overview of automobile history. He said, There was electric and folks Read More ›

Summer meadow blow balls landscape painting

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post

Author
Casey Luskin
Date
November 14, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Blake Lemoine and sentient computers, COSM, Featured, Federico Faggin and the nature of human beings, Maria Teresa Cometto, Vincent Van Gogh and the nature of art}

Could AI ever pass the Van Gogh test?

_{Van Gogh was crazy but he was talented and AI can be neither} _{Casey Luskin

November 14, 2022

6

Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

The Van Gogh Test for sheer creativity? Thursday night at COSM presented a live, in-person interview with Federico Faggin, the Italian physicist and computer engineer who co-won the prestigious Kyoto prize in 1997 for helping develop the Intel 4004 chip. Faggin was interviewed by technology reporter Maria Teresa Cometto, who asked him to regale the audience with tales about helping to design early microchips. Eventually Faggin recounted a time when he was “studying neuroscience and biology, trying to understand how the brain works,” and came upon a startling realization: And at one point I asked myself, “But wait a second, I mean these books, all this talk about electrical signals, biochemical signals, but when I taste some chocolate, I mean Read More ›

Wheat field. Ears of golden wheat closeup. Harvest concept

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 14, 2022

Categorized
Economics, Environment

Tagged
Featured, Josh Gilder, Paracelsus, Pesticides and health}

Pesticides Bad, organics good! But how do we know it’s true?

_{Thinking that pesticides are bad and organic is good is thinking is ingrained into our common wisdom. Few question it} _{News

November 14, 2022

4

Economics, Environment}

Josh Gilder, who worked with the State Department and was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan (1911–2004 ), opened by quoting the 16th century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus, who reportedly said “The dose makes the poison.” For example, a very small amount of arsenic will have “no detectable physiological effect on you whatsoever,” whereas drinking too much water can kill you. (Recall the woman who tragically died in the “Hold your Wee for a Wii” contest.) The body produces electricity but “you get hit by a lightning bolt, you’re dead,” Gilder explained. These and innumerable other examples confirm the wisdom of Paracelsus.The relevance for us today, Gilder explained, is that many chemicals that are regulated or even banned — due to their Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Casey Luskin
Date
November 13, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Human exceptionalism

Tagged
Blake Lemoine at COSM 2022, COSM, COSM 2022, Featured, George Montanez at COSM 2022, LaMDA (claims for sentience), Robert J. Marks at COSM 2022, Three Laws of Robotics}

Experts at COSM Debate Whether Chatbot was Sentient

_{Turned out quite pleasant. Google fired him in 2022 - but what really happened there?} _{Casey Luskin

November 13, 2022

8

Artificial Intelligence, Human exceptionalism}

Last Thursday morning at COSM, a panel of experts debated whether truly sentient artificial intelligence (AI) could potentially exist — and even whether it already does. Robert J. Marks, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Baylor University, opened by criticizing the Turing test, as a measure of whether we’ve produced genuine AI. Developed by the famous English mathematician and World War II codebreaker Alan Turing, the test holds that if we can’t distinguish a machine’s conversational discourse from that of a real human, then it must exhibit humanlike intelligence. Marks maintains that this is the wrong test for detecting true AI. In his view, the Turing test fails because it “looks at a book and tries to judge Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Casey Luskin
Date
November 12, 2022

Categorized
Information Theory

Tagged
Featured, Georg Seelig, Matt Scholz, Synthetic biology}

Is Information the Future of Medicine and Biology?

_{University of Washington’s Georg Seelig wants to “design molecules” and “write genetic information”} _{Casey Luskin

November 12, 2022

5

Information Theory}

At a Thursday afternoon panel at COSM 2022, pioneers in biology had a chance to talk to the public about the code that is written into our genomes. First up was Georg Seelig, a Swiss synthetic biologist and researcher at the Paul Allen School of Computer Science at the University of Washington (UW). He described his bioengineering research as aiming to learn “to read and write the language of the genome,” which is a “sort of a code” written in a “language.” Popular wisdom might hold that we have fully deciphered this language — and Seelig acknowledges that “over the last few decades, we’ve really learned a lot about the syntax of this language.” But he explains there’s still much Read More ›

Crowd of people on the street. No recognizable faces

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post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
November 12, 2022

Categorized
Creativity, Economics

Tagged
COSM, superabundance}

Living in a Superabundant Age

_{Marian L. Tupy talks economics, falling birth rates, and human creativity at the COSM conference} _{Peter Biles

November 12, 2022

4

Creativity, Economics}

On November 10th, Marian L. Tupy, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, spoke at this year’s COSM technology summit on behalf of his new book Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet. Tupy co-wrote the book with Gale L. Pooley, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and associate professor of business management at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. Their book takes a contrarian view of economics, scarcity, and the idea that an excessive human population diminishes the world’s resources. As the book’s title suggests, Tupy and Pooley take the opposite view: the world’s resources increase with population growth. During the COSM session, Tupy said, The caveman had the same natural resources at Read More ›

Young couple with eyeglasses pose outdoors

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Varner
Date
November 12, 2022

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
Bortus (character in the Orville series), Featured, Moclans in Orville sci-fi series, Orville Season 3 Episode 5, Straw man arguments, Topa (character in the Orville series), Transgenderism (in Orville series Season 3)}

Orville Episode 5 Is an Allegory Done Right… Accidentally

_{Gary Varner

November 12, 2022

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

I’ll say this for Episode 5 of The Orville Season Three: Regardless of my personal opinions about the show’s message, structurally speaking, this was the most solid story so far. Previous episodes have been plagued by random scenes that don’t seem to correlate with each other and pretentious diatribes that would surely turn off a viewer who did not agree with the writer’s opinions to begin with. In this episode, I felt like I was dealing with a writer who, at least, knew what he or she was doing. And the amazing thing about this is that the higher quality in the writing raised the quality of the actors’ performances as well. Cast members who were stale and boring through Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 11, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI Superpowers (book), America versus America (book), COSM, Featured, Kai-Fu Lee, Peter Thiel, Wang Huning}

Peter Thiel’s Take on What Has Really Happened With AI

_{The trouble is, who is AI really benefiting?} _{News

November 11, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence}

Peter Thiel is a classic in people you should know about but possibly don’t. He helped get PayPal and LinkedIn started and he tries to think about where new tech is taking us. He spoke at COSM 2022 on that topic and he mentions a book that should set us thinking: The high-level question I want to ask today is, basically, how should we think about AI? Should we think of it as intelligent, conscious, or merely evil? The book that I think is interesting is that of Wang Huning, who’s the number four guy in the entire communist government [of China]. He’s sort of the professor and theorist of Xi Jinping thought. And he wrote this book [about his Read More ›

Two hands holding a paper with human head and a puzzle piece. Finding a cure to heal the disease. Mental health concept, memory loss and dementia disease. Alzheimer's losing brain and memory function.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 11, 2022

Categorized
Neuroscience}

Why Is the Human Brain Different?

_{News

November 11, 2022

2

Neuroscience}

Well, here’s one way. The human body is typically symmetrical. We have two kidneys and two nostrils. But that’s not what happens with the human brain, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute report: But this so-called lateralization, the tendency for brain regions to process certain functions more in the left or right hemisphere, varies from person to person. And not only in the minority whose brains are specialized mirror-inverted compared to the majority. Even people with classically arranged brains differ in how pronounced their asymmetry is. Earlier studies had shown that this, in turn, can also affect the functions themselves. For example, a lack of left asymmetry of certain language areas is observed in dyslexia. Insufficient brain lateralization also Read More ›

futuristic earth map technology abstract background

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 10, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Politics

Tagged
Computer-run world, Eric J. Larson, Featured, Hedgehog Review, Myth of Artificial Intelligence (book)}

So After Big Tech’s Play Worlds Are Played Out… Where Are We?

_{Computer technician Erik J. Larson asks, What have we learned that will help us?} _{News

November 10, 2022

2

Artificial Intelligence, Politics}

Computer scientist and entrepreneur Erik J. Larson, author of The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (2021), asks us to look at life in the aftermath of the big new world that computers are supposed to create: But the “bureau of statistics” mindset is now a problem. It dominates thinking everywhere, not just in technology businesses aiming for sticky ads and more captive users. Nearly every institution one can point to today, from government to science, media, medicine, insurance, and many others, embraces a centralized, data-capture model requiring massive computing resources and actively downplaying human ingenuity in favor of number crunching and prediction. More troubling perhaps, is the way this has shaped the zeitgeist. Read More ›

Peter Thiel via videoconference at COSM 2022

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 10, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Tagged
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Computer science vs physics, Computer sim universe, COSM, Featured, Multiverse (Peter Thiel's view), Peter Thiel, Peter Thiel on multiverse, Physics and universe as computer sim, Universe as computer sim}

Peter Thiel: The Multiverse Is a “Gateway Drug”

_{It’s a gateway drug to other crazy ideas, like the belief we live in a simulation} _{News

November 10, 2022

5

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance}

BELLEVUE, WA — Speaking to tech leaders and investors at COSM 2022 in the Seattle area, entrepreneur Peter Thiel provocatively asked “why do so many people in Silicon Valley believe in the simulation hypothesis that the entire universe, the cosmos, is just a computer simulation? Why do they believe something as crazy as this?” Actually, noted Thiel, the belief that our world is a simulation has now faded somewhat: I think probably the peak belief in the simulation hypothesis was maybe something like a decade ago, maybe circa 2012 to 2015, and it has probably faded some. We’ll still have Gen Z people say that things are a glitch in the simulation or there’s still some sort of passive reference Read More ›

Empty highway surrounded by clouds heading to the light

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 10, 2022

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Near-death experiences (Sam Parnia), Sam Parnia, Wesley J. Smith on NDEs}

Life after death receives boost from new research study

_{The world of Science! certainly isn’t turning out as some have hoped} _{News

November 10, 2022

3

Philosophy of Mind}

In recent decades, it has become possible to revive people in various stages of death who, at one time, would have died, leaving no testimony. The news from AWARE II won’t please total materialists at all: The study authors conclude that although studies to date have not been able to absolutely prove the reality or meaning of patients’ experiences and claims of awareness in relation to death, it has been impossible to disclaim them either. They say recalled experience surrounding death now merits further genuine empirical investigation without prejudice. NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Langone Health, “Lucid Dying: Patients Recall Death Experiences During CPR” at Cision PR Newswire (November 6, 2022) Why not assume that those people were Read More ›

Big ideas. Illuminated light bulb among the rest of the unlit bulbs.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 9, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Philosophy

Tagged
Academic Freedom Conference (Stanford 2022), Colleen Flaherty}

Stanford Academic Freedom Event Angers Who You Might Expect

_{Whether any further such events will be encouraged is another question…} _{News

November 9, 2022

2

Censorship, Philosophy}

Remember that academic freedom conference at Stanford (November 4–5) where we were asked to consider that the purpose the conference was that “racism is given shelter and immunity”? So what really happened? The account at Inside Higher Education oozes hostility. But from one of its less hostile moments, we learn: During a panel on academic freedom in STEM, Mimi St Johns, a Stanford undergraduate student of computer science, said that students face pressure from peers not to study such fields as petroleum engineering or to pursue jobs in government, even though both of these paths could lead to work on some of the world’s most urgent problems. John Ioannidis, professor of medicine at Stanford, said that this elderly mother was Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
November 8, 2022

Categorized
Probability, Sports

Tagged
Featured, Houston Astros wins and probability, Los Angeles Dodgers and probability, Major League Baseball and probability, Probability and top wins in sports, San Diego Padres and probability}

This Time, Houston Was Blessed More by Luck Than by Stolen Signs

_{The victory parade over, let’s look at whether luck had more to do with the Astros’ success than Astro fans want to admit} _{Gary Smith

November 8, 2022

5

Probability, Sports}

The Houston Astros are the 2022 Major League Baseball (MLB) World Champion — this time, as far as we know, without relying on electronically stolen pitching signs sent to batters by banging trashcan lids or using buzzers hidden under uniforms. Now that the champagne has popped and the victory parade has been held, let’s consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, luck had more to do with the Astros’ success than Astro fans want to admit. Athletes and fans want to believe that the team that wins the World Series, Super Bowl, or any other championship is the best team that year. The reality is that in every sport — some more than others — outcomes are influenced by good Read More ›

intellectual property. light bulb with chain

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 8, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Education, Philosophy

Tagged
Charles W. Calomiris, Pano Kanelos, Tom Bartlett, University of Austin 2022, University of Austin and intellectual freedom}

How’s the University of Austin Coming? It’s Actually Happening

_{The “intellectual freedom” university continues to take shape in a world of “death to free speech”} _{News

November 8, 2022

4

Censorship, Education, Philosophy}

A very cautious article at Chronicle of Higher Education about the University of Austin fills in the rest of us. U Austin has come a long way since it was mocked at The New Republic as allegedly seeking to be “higher education’s premier institution of monetizing moral panics.” A couple of observations from senior Chronicle writer Tom Bartlett: The pioneer faculty have the money to get started: Chatter aside, the University of Austin is starting to take shape in the year since its raucous rollout. Curriculum is being developed. The accreditation process is underway. A deal for land in the greater Austin area is being hammered out. The university has lured several professors away from other universities and plans to Read More ›

Coronavirus maps disease 2019 situation update worldwide coronavirus spread,World map Coronavirus or Covid-19 Close-up countries with Covid-19, Covid 19 map confirmed cases report worldwide globally.

^{Type
post

Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
November 8, 2022

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Politics

Tagged
China and COVID-19, COVID-19 and international politics, COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, COVID-19 origin and problem of totalitarian state, Featured, Huanan Market, Jeff Kao, Katherine Eban, Lab leak theory (COVID-19), Pressure suits in virus labs, Toy Reid, Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Wuhan Institute of Virology and COVID origin}

Lab Leak Theory: A Biohazard Was First Noted in 2019

_{The dispatches indicate a “grave and complex situation” prompting an emergency visit from the director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences} _{Heather Zeiger

November 8, 2022

10

Medicine and Health, Politics}

A US Senate interim report has recently concluded that that “the Covid-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.” The 35-page report, prepared by the minority oversight staff of the of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), used publicly available documentation to justify the findings. However, it did not include the 236-page report submitted by language expert Toy Reid, who analyzed Chinese Communist Party dispatches between scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and their supervisors in Beijing. Katherine Eban of Vanity Fair and Jeff Kao of ProPublica were given advanced access to the Senate researchers’ documents and spent months conducting their own investigation. They interviewed Reid, talked with members Read More ›

The electric chair apparatus in a Death row reenactment.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 8, 2022

Categorized
Censorship, Politics

Tagged
Allen Harris Law, Death penalty for free speech, McLaughlin and Associates, Universities and free speech, University students endorse death for free speech}

Students: Free Speech Should Sometimes Result in Death Penalty

_{An open mind is apparently no longer valued at universities, the way it used to be} _{News

November 8, 2022

4

Censorship, Politics}

People who are used to thinking of college campuses as places where students go to learn about new ideas and the advantages of keeping an open mind might be interested in this recent survey conducted by McLaughlin and Associates: Calls for diversity on campuses and in Main Street businesses and banning hate speech, even that protected by the 1st Amendment, are no longer issues to fight over for American college kids. Now it’s a reason for the electric chair. And when it comes to speech, nearly half believe the death penalty is OK to shoot down hate speech. While the results might please left-leaning college professors, it is stirring concerns on the right who already feel that the left is Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 7, 2022

Categorized
Social Media

Tagged
Blue Checkmark (Twitter), Brian Moynihan, Elon Musk, Elon Musk and changes at Twitter, Facebook layoffs (2022), Jacob Carpenter, JacobCarpenter on Twitter, Steve Tollman, Twitter, Twitter blue check marks, Twitter layoffs (2022)}

Musk’s Day at Twitter Dawned: And So What Really Happened?

_{For one thing, many layoffs — but layoffs are currently widespread in Big Tech} _{Denyse O'Leary

November 7, 2022

4

Social Media}

Important people seem to be taking Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover very seriously indeed. Were those of us who have disregarded Twitter in the past wrong? Blind sided? Here’s U.S. President Joe Biden: “Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world, There’s no editors anymore in America.” Maybe, but no one is forced to join Twitter or even listen… Many traditional tech watchers are sounding an alarm over Musk’s post-takeover layoffs. But before we get into that, let’s note that other Big Techs are also currently laying off personnel in considerable numbers: November 4 has been called the worst day for layoffs in 2022 (Black Thursday) at Fortune: News of job cuts came down Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Richard W. Stevens
Date
November 7, 2022

Categorized
Law, Robotics

Tagged
Declaration of Independence and human rights, Featured, Human rights in Judeo-Christian view, Intelligence (varieties of intelligence), John Locke on human rights, Jonny Thomson, Rights (bases for rights), Rights (objective vs subjective criteria), Robot rights, Robot rights as downgrading human rights, Robots and natural rights, Sapience and robots, Sentience and robots}

Why Don’t Robots Have Rights? A Lawyer’s Response

_{Robots are hardware and software packages that lack a nature or any abilities outside of whatever their designers imagine} _{Richard W. Stevens

November 7, 2022

8

Law, Robotics}

“Free the Robots!” “Equal Rights for Robots!” Or maybe: “Set Us Robots Free!” Such future protest signs might well pop up in social media, to judge from “Why don’t robots have rights?” (Big Think, October 31, 2022) Writer Jonny Thomson worries that “ future generations will look back aghast at our behavior” when humans can “no longer exploit or mistreat advanced robots” as will presumably be the case in the 21st century. Dig into the article and get techno-whiplashed as Thomson suddenly starts talking about “the 22nd century [when robots] are our friends, colleagues, and gaming partners.” Thomson’s article considers robot rights as analogous to animal rights. The summary asserts: When discussing animal rights and welfare, we often reference two Read More ›