Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

ArchiveArticles

hands-hold-a-paper-sheet-with-the-message-your-vote-matters-over-a-crowded-street-background-people-legal-and-democratic-rights-every-voice-counts-election-campaign-and-electoral-agitation-concept-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Hands hold a paper sheet with the message your vote matters over a crowded street background. People legal and democratic rights, every voice counts. Election campaign and electoral agitation concept

How Crypto Can Help Secure Fair Elections

Here’s what we need for a cryptosecure election protocol (CEP)

(Recently, we’ve been asking readers to think about Alice and Bob, the famous pair in physics used to demonstrate propositions in a variety of contexts but we began to focus on what happens if Alice and Bob are competing for a political office. Bernard Fickser, whose argument for reform we have been following, offers a look at how a crypto secure election system might work.) We now come to the most interesting part of this article, namely, a cryptographically based protocol for securing elections. If such a protocol can be made to fly, it will do much to secure free and fair elections as well as to boost voter confidence that votes are being accurately counted and not mixed with Read More ›

Brown Nautilus Shell

Walter Bradley Center: Year in Review 2020

Despite COVID-19, we had a very productive year

Mind Matters News is sponsored by the non-profit Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Discovery Institute. Will you help Mind Matters News continue by supporting the work of the Bradley Center with an end-of-year donation? In a world awash with over-hyped claims (both pro and con) about artificial intelligence, the work of the Bradley Center couldn’t be more timely and important. People know at a fundamental level that they are not machines. But faulty thinking can cause people to adopt views that in their heart of hearts they know to be untrue. The Bradley Center seeks to help individuals—and our society at large—to realize that we are not machines, while at the same time helping to put Read More ›

data-technology-background-big-data-visualization-flow-of-data-information-code-background-in-a-matrix-style-4k-rendering-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Data technology background. Big data visualization. Flow of data. Information code. Background in a matrix style. 4k rendering.

Torturing Data Can Destroy a Career: The Case of Brian Wansink

Wansink wasn’t alone. A surprising number of studies published in highly respected peer-reviewed journals are complete nonsense and could not be replicated with fresh data

Until a few years ago, Brian Wansink (pictured in 2007) was a Professor of Marketing at Cornell and the Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. He authored (or co-authored) more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and wrote two popular books, Mindless Eating and Slim by Design, which have been translated into more than 25 languages. In one of his most famous studies, 54 volunteers were served tomato soup. Half were served from normal bowls and half from “bottomless bowls” which had hidden tubes that imperceptibly refilled the bowls. Those with the bottomless bowls ate, on average, 73 percent more soup but they did not report feeling any fuller than the people who ate from normal bowls. Eating is evidently Read More ›

dating app.jpg
Online dating app or site in mobile phone. Finding love and romance from internet with smartphone. Man giving like. Many hologram photos of beautiful woman around cellphone. Stalker looking at profile

Can AI Find You the Love of Your Life?

Faced with a steeply declining birth rate, Japan’s government has decided to try AI matchmaking

Well, outsourcing everything to technology is the thing these days and the Japanese government, faced with a steeply declining birthrate, is giving AI matchmaking a try: Around half of the nation’s 47 prefectures offer matchmaking services and some of them have already introduced AI systems, according to the Cabinet Office. The human-run matchmaking services often use standardized forms to list people’s interests and hobbies, and AI systems can perform more advanced analysis of this data. “We are especially planning to offer subsidies to local governments operating or starting up matchmaking projects that use AI,” the official said. AFP-JIJI, “We have a match! Japan taps AI to boost birth rate slump” at Japan Times (December 7, 2020) Declining birthrate? Japan Times Read More ›

nautilus-shell-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
nautilus shell

We’re the Walter Bradley Center. But Who Is Walter Bradley?

A new biography, For a Greater Purpose, discusses Bradley’s life and legacy

Mind Matters News is published by the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence. And a natural question is, who is this guy, Walter Bradley? Find out in a new biography authored by design theorist William Dembski and myself, For a Greater Purpose. The Foreword is written by the extraordinary philosopher J. P. Moreland. From the book, here’s what others are saying about Walter Bradley: ● “Walter Bradley is one of the most extraordinary men I have ever known. I am in awe of him.” —William Lane Craig, PhD, DTh, ReasonableFaith.org ● “One of the great blessings God has granted me in my life is the opportunity to have co-ministered with [Walter Bradley] among faculty and students on university Read More ›

therapist-helping-young-man-learning-to-walk-again-in-rehabilitation-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Therapist helping young man learning to walk again in rehabilitation

Why Robotics Offers Hope for Paraplegics

The breakthrough idea is that the human brain can process electronic signals from machines as well as signals from peripheral nerves

Neuroengineer Gordon Cheng compares technology that can help paraplegics to walk again to learning to drive a car: The idea behind this is that the coupling between the brain and the machine should work in a way where the brain thinks of the machine as an extension of the body. Let’s take driving as an example. While driving a car, you don’t think about your moves, do you? But we still don’t know how this really works. My theory is that the brain somehow adapts to the car as if it is a part of the body. With this general idea in mind, it would be great to have an exoskeleton that would be embraced by the brain in the Read More ›

inner-life-of-super-human-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Inner Life of Super Human

A Silicon Valley Psychologist Doesn’t Believe in Consciousness

Duncan Riach thinks that, with increasing complexity, computers will appear to be conscious too but it’s a misunderstanding for both humans and computers

Duncan Riach, who believes that computers can become selves, doesn’t believe in consciousness. As he explains, I’ve lost friends over this because a denial of consciousness undermines a final refuge of the arrogance of selfhood: universal consciousness. But even most normal people are strongly insistent that consciousness is a real thing, a special thing, and that they possess it. The problem I have is that there’s not only no evidence for it, but what people seem to be referring to as consciousness is explainable as an effect no more unusual, no less materialistically explainable, than water flowing downhill… Rather than jumping to the conclusion that this body has a soul and/or that somehow this “I am,” this feeling of something Read More ›

black-hole-eye-of-consciousness-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg

Psychologist: Consciousness Is Not a Thing But a Point of View

Mark Solms attempts to explain consciousness in his new book, Hidden Spring

Anyone who thinks about consciousness soon realizes that it is a Hard Problem. It means being a subject of experience, rather than an object to which experiences happen. A dog has consciousness. He yelps when in pain. But a rock does not care about becoming sand. In an interesting article in Psychology Today, neuropsychologist Mark Solms outlines some thoughts from a book he has written on the subject, The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness (Norton, 2021): Physiological processes do not produce consciousness in the sense that the liver produces bile. Consciousness is not a thing but rather a point of view. What we perceive objectively as physiological processes in the brain we perceive subjectively as conscious Read More ›

time-concept-hi-res-digitally-generated-image-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Time concept. Hi-res digitally generated image.

Sci-Fi Saturday Film: “Speed of Time” from DUST

A computer nerd writing a pizza delivery program discovers that his work is way more important than he, or anyone, thought

From the free DUST sci-fi channel at YouTube: “Speed of Time,” 12:19 min by Russ Nickel and William J. Stribling, September 17, 2020: “Johnny Killfire (John Hennigan) must go back in time and team up with his former self (Sean Marquette) to stop the TimeBorgs from getting their hands on an app that breaks the space-time continuum by delivering pizzas into the past…before they were even ordered.” It sounds like an agreeable quarter hour. Imagine what happens when an accomplished ground warrior busts in from another time on a quiet family at the breakfast table… Unfortunately, things go downhill from there, unless the film is intended as a satire on a certain type of science fiction. Pizza delivery rips a Read More ›

360-degree-massive-black-hole-panorama-equirectangular-projection-environment-map-hdri-spherical-panorama-space-background-with-black-hole-and-stars-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
360 degree massive black hole panorama, equirectangular projection, environment map. HDRI spherical panorama. Space background with black hole and stars

Sci-Fi Saturday Film: “Alone” at DUST

Space engineer Kaya Torres, the only survivor of a black hole, contacts an “interstellar penpal” to keep her company until she dies

From the free DUST sci-fi channel at YouTube: “Alone” by William Helmuth (December 3, 2020): From the Press Kit: Kaya Torres, an engineer with a sailor’s mouth and a stubborn spirit, barely escapes her research ship when calamity breaks it in half. Now she’s circling a black hole in a pod, with no one coming, no one to help. She’s alone. While figuring out what to do, Kaya starts sending messages to Hammer, a cartographer marooned on a nearby planet. And as their friendship grows, Kaya’s options slowly dwindle, until survival seems hopelessly out of reach… As Torres is “marooned on my lifepod” as the only survivor of the DSV Intrepid, she is able to contact an “interstellar penpal” to Read More ›

blue-ice-covered-mountains-in-south-polar-ocean-winter-antarctic-landscape-the-mounts-reflection-in-the-crystal-clear-water-the-cloudy-sky-over-the-massive-rock-glacier-travel-wild-nature-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Blue Ice covered mountains in south polar ocean. Winter Antarctic landscape. The mount's reflection in the crystal clear water. The cloudy sky over the massive rock glacier. Travel wild nature

Sci-Fi Saturday Film: “The Beacon” at DUST

Especially harrowing is the Arctic encounter where the grieving husband finds out what really happened

From the free DUST sci-fi channel at YouTube: (“The Beacon” by Chris Staehler, 25:10 min) “Mark and Kara Verne are both young shipping pilots struggling to make ends meet. When Kara goes missing months after taking a large interstellar contract, Mark travels to the far reaches of the galaxy in search of his wife.” The story sets up well. A business opportunity suddenly presents itself that will enable the copule to greatly improve their fortunes. When she goes missing, her desperate husband has a hard time finding out what happened. The film is definitely worth seeing, if only for the bureaucrat from hell that Mark confronts about the problem though it strikes a false note when he offers her a Read More ›

retro-old-beige-fridge-in-loft-style-wooden-kitchen-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Retro old beige fridge in loft style wooden kitchen

#11: A Lot of AI Is As Transparent As Your Fridge

A great deal of high tech today is owned by corporations

As the year draws to a close, our Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviews fellow computer nerds, members of our Brain Trust, Jonathan Bartlett and Eric Holloway on their picks for over hyped AI of the year. Hey, great stuff happened in AI this year. But well, lots of “stuff” happened too. And it’s time to have some fun! So here’s #11! Corporate types insist that they believe in transparency. But a lot of AI is as transparent as your fridge. Our team has the story: #11 starts at about 9:08 A partial transcript and Show Notes follow. A recent article in top science journal Nature pointed out that AI developments that matter today are often not transparent. Read More ›

multi-ethnic-group-of-people-standing-in-row-and-wearing-masks-at-polling-station-on-election-day-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Multi-ethnic group of people standing in row and wearing masks at polling station on election day

How Electoral Fraud Is Different From Financial Fraud

Money can be moved around safely but votes must be credited to a single intended destination

(Recently, we’ve been asking readers to think about Alice and Bob, the famous pair in physics used to demonstrate propositions in a variety of contexts but, just for now, let’s look at how Alice’s vote might be stolen, as opposed to funds from her account being stolen. What would help prevent that? This is Bernard Fickser’s view:) The role of the voter in the electoral context has no parallel in the financial context. As a result, a significant difference exists in the roles of financial Alice and Bob versus electoral Alice and Bob. In the financial context, Alice, Bob and others like them (Carol, David, Earnest, etc.) are financial agents that consciously move money, or capital, among themselves. In the Read More ›

charming-young-woman-undergoing-electroencephalography-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Charming young woman undergoing electroencephalography

New Findings Debunk Many Studies Claiming To Read Minds via EEG

The researchers first became suspicious when they could not replicate many findings

We are told by Purdue University researchers that “many eye-popping findings that were based on this dataset and received high-profile recognition are false after all.” In this case, there was a simple error: The Purdue team performed extensive tests over more than one year on the dataset, which looked at the brain activity of individuals taking part in a study where they looked at a series of images. Each individual wore a cap with dozens of electrodes while they viewed the images. The Purdue team’s work is published in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. The team received funding from the National Science Foundation. “This measurement technique, known as electroencephalography or EEG, can provide information about brain activity Read More ›

seo-symbol-on-the-keyboard-of-a-latop-3d-renderingconceptual-image-online-google-and-search-concepts-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
SEO symbol  on the keyboard of a latop, 3d rendering,conceptual image. online  google and search concepts.

Why Are 38 American States Suing Google?

Better question: What search engine results do you NEVER see?

The current lawsuit was announced by Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser but 38 states are signatories. The big issue is alleged suppression of competition. First, a bit of background: This is not the first big time lawsuit. That one would be from the U.S. Department of Justice in October: In October, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google, owned by Alphabet, for violating antitrust laws and actively enabling a monopoly in search engines and search advertising. The announcement followed a year’s worth of investigation by prosecutors, who “have spoken with Google’s rivals in technology and media, collecting information and documents that could be used to build a case.” The suit focuses on the tech giant’s illegal actions Read More ›

i-caught-a-huge-fish-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
I caught a huge fish

#12! AI Is Going To Solve All Our Problems Soon!

In our countdown for the Top Twelve AI Hypes of 2020

First, before we get started: The AI industry has been making real progress. But with real progress comes real hype. That figures. We spent all year covering the real progress. Now that we are all kicking up our feet, we are going to send up some of the hype. We used to only have 10 top hypes but now we have 12. If progress continues at this pace, we might end up with 59 by 2050… Anyway, our Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed fellow computer nerds, members of our Brain Trust, Jonathan Bartlett and Eric Holloway on their picks last Saturday. And here’s #12! The article itself is actually an admission rather than a hype but let’s Read More ›

african-american-citizen-voting-near-stand-with-vote-lettering-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
african american citizen voting near stand with vote lettering

What If Voters Could Sue for Lost or Altered Ballots?

Let’s look at the difference between what happens with financial fraud and electoral fraud

Recently, we’ve been asking readers to think about Alice and Bob, the famous pair in physics used to demonstrate propositions in a variety of contexts but, just for now. Let’s look at how Alice might be able to detect financial fraud, courtesy the blog Expensivity. Fraudster Frank can cheat Financial Alice. But how does she know? Bernard Fickser asks us to consider two ways… and to ask, what if it involves stealing her vote? 1.The money just disappeared. In this case there would be no record of any authorization by Alice, or by someone impersonating Alice, or by any bank official that she disbursed the funds. This would represent a cybersecurity failure on the part of the bank, and the Read More ›

set-of-funny-colored-stickers-with-different-emotions-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
set of funny colored stickers with different emotions

Study: The Expression of Human Emotions Is Universal

Most representations in visual arts depend on the universality of human emotion

Most of us wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the expression of human emotions is universal. But today there is a study for everything and 16 “universal human emotional expressions” have been identified: Whether at a birthday party in Brazil, a funeral in Kenya or protests in Hong Kong, humans all use variations of the same facial expressions in similar social contexts, such as smiles, frowns, grimaces and scowls, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows… Researchers at UC Berkeley and Google used machine-learning technology known as a “deep neural network” to analyze facial expressions in some 6 million video clips uploaded to YouTube from people in 144 countries spanning North, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, Read More ›

a-raven-in-dartmoor-uk-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
A raven in Dartmoor, UK

So Now Ravens Are As Smart As Chimpanzees…

But wait! Weren’t chimpanzees supposed to be the closest thing to humans?

Researchers tested ravens they had raised themselves (“hand-raised”), starting at four months of age (not far from the egg…) and then at 8, 12, and 16 months of age on a series of cognitive skills, compared to chimpanzees: Comparing the cognitive performance of the ravens with those of 106 chimpanzees and 32 orangutans who completed similar tasks in a previous study, the authors found that with the exception of spatial memory, the cognitive performance of the ravens was very similar to those of orangutans and chimpanzees. Nature Publishing Group , “Cognitive performance of four-months-old ravens may parallel adult apes” at Phys.org Here’s the open-access study. The authors offer an explanation: The findings provide evidence that ravens, similarly to great apes, Read More ›

senior-woman-giving-credit-card-details-on-the-phone-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Senior Woman Giving Credit Card Details On The Phone

How Do We Know Financial Transactions Are Honest?

Let’s look at the steps we can take to find out

Recently, we’ve been asking readers to think about Alice and Bob, the famous pair in physics used to demonstrate propositions, for example, as if as if they were running for office. At Expensivity, a blog about that expensive and unpleasant subject, money, Bernard Fickser asks about better ways of preventing financial fraud: We focus on financial Alice (the situation with financial Bob is parallel). Alice wants the record of deposits and disbursements in her ledger to reflect deposits that she has knowingly and willingly received as well as disbursements that she has authorized to go to the intended parties. If this is the case, the record of deposits and disbursements in her ledger as well as the running totals will Read More ›