ArchiveArticles
Is Your Online Data for Sale? The Tik Tok Hearings May Shed Light
To enable total state surveillance, telecom companies in China, for example, must supply data that can include everything from bank accounts to keystrokes
Monday Micro Softy 9: To Flip or Not to Flip?
Probability theory can sometimes help with seemingly impossible questions. But how?
Do High AI Startup Valuations Mean Great Success, or Desperation?
The answer is important but is not as clear as we might think. First, let's look at the backgroundConsider a recent news report: “Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a deal that would value it at $60 billion, more than triple its valuation from a year ago” says the Wall Street Journal. Anthropic’s last venture capital (VC) funding round, less than two months ago, raised $2 billion, bringing its total funding to $9.6 billion. OpenAI had raised $6.6 billion, last October just a year after it raised $10 billion from Microsoft the previous year and just months after it also raised funds on the debt and secondary markets. So that $6.6 billion round was the largest VC funding round ever, a little larger than the $6 billion that Elon Musk’s generative AI startup, xAI, raised in 2023. Read More ›
Is Science in Our Frame of Reality Inevitably Incomplete?
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that human consciousness isn’t a material phenomenon like any other; it has one foot in time and another in eternity
Are Churches Becoming Victims of Stockholm Syndrome?
In a new book, John West looks at the problem of evangelical church leaders adopting the belief systems of their opponents, perhaps to stay safe
Music in the Mind
The need for poetry in totalitarian times
Terminator 3, Parting Thoughts: A Father’s Lie Dooms the World
When John and Kate get to Crystal Peak, they find that it is really a fallout shelter for the country’s leaders, but the leaders never made it. And yet...
Trudeau Resigns: Canada’s Media Control Bills Are Stymied For Now
Is the Woke war on reality beginning to stall? In Canada, it is a war not only on math, science, and biology, but also history
The AI Bubble: Hype, Reality, and Consequences
In this week's podcast, Pomona College economics prof Gary Jones discusses with Robert J. Marks what generative AI is and isn't good for
Podcast Guest Claims He Won’t Die, Says We’re Creating God With AI
Got immortality? This man says he has the secret.
Facebook Fact-checkers, Facing Doom, Call Urgent Meeting
One possible interpretation is that Zuckerberg was as afraid of these freelance censors as anyone else and saw a chance to neutralize the threat
A Library Without Books Is Like a Book Without Pages
There is a disturbing new phenomenon afoot – babies and toddlers are turning up at nurseries and schools not knowing what books are, or how to use them
Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook To Lighten Up on Censorship
He wants to move away from moderation and more towards a Community Notes approach
Large Language Models (LLMs) Flunk Word Game Connections
Despite hype, ChatGPT and its competitors, in all their iterations, are still just text-generators based on statistical patterns in the text databases they train on
2025: Rejecting Brain Rot
Toward a more embodied and human way of life
Monday Micro Softy 8: Who’s the Better Barber?
There are only two barbers to choose from and the choice may not be as easy as it looks. Also, here's the answer to Who's the Champ?
Assisted-Suicide Death Ceremonies Becoming Normalized
I certainly believe we should all remember that we are going to die as a means of focusing our faith or concentrating on how to live better lives
Terminator 3 Review Part 3: Are We Looking At a New Sarah Connor?
What made Sarah’s character work was her start as a simple waitress who turns into a strong, resourceful warrior. Can John pick up where she left off?
Edge of Sentience Summarizes Research on Animals’, AIs’ Feelings
And animal rights laws as well. But there is a dark side to Jonathan Birch’s approach too…Philosophy prof Jonathan Birch, principal investigator of the Animal Sentience Project at the London School of Economics, has written a book on whether and how animals feel things: The Edge of Sentience (Oxford University Press 2024). It’s not as arcane a topic as it might at first appear. It shows up in new legislation and think tanks. At Amazon, we learn, for example, “In 2021, he led a review for the UK government that shaped the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022. In 2022-23, he was part of a working group that investigated the question of sentience in AI.” And as Birch told Marc Bekoff at Psychology Today, I’m probably best-known for my work on invertebrate sentience, which is one part Read More ›