ArchiveArticles
Can Plants Be as Smart as Animals?
Seeking to thrive and grow, plants communicate extensively, without a mind or a brainNone of the plants' extensive "social life" requires reason, emotion, value systems, mind, consciousness, or a sense of self. It requires only that the plant, like an animal, seek to continue its highly organized existence. But plants' ability to process information for that purpose gives pause for thought.
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AI Winter Is Coming
Roughly every decade since the late 1960s has experienced a promising wave of AI that later crashed on real-world problems, leading to collapses in research funding.
Does Democracy Demand a War on Twitterbots?
A key concern is that citizens could be induced to vote for a demagogue by Twitterbots spreading fake news.
Human Consciousness May Not Be Computable
One model of consciousness would mean that conscious computers are a physical impossibility
Can the Air Force Create Thinking Planes?
Smart drones? They are working on general artificial intelligence (GAI)
Do Quasars Provide Evidence for Free Will?
Possibly. They certainly rule out experimenter interference.
Is AI Creating the Conditions for Marxist Revolution?
An analyst looks at the conditions then and now
Tom Stoppard’s New Play Tackles Consciousness Itself
Consciousness is a hard problem for science, principally because no one quite understands what makes us the subjects of our experiences.
Too Big to Fail Safe?
If artificial intelligence makes disastrous decisions from very complex calculations, will we still understand what went wrong?
AI Social Media Could Totally Manipulate You
Deep learning specialist: And the scary thing is, the AI needed is not especially advancedReaders familiar with The Two Towers will recall that that’s precisely what Worm-Tongue did to Theoden King: The king heard nothing but what was conveyed to him from his would-be overlord by Worm-tongue, until someone separated him, rather forcibly, from his "social medium."
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How the KGB Found CIA Agents
An illustration of complex, specified information (CSI) in the world of foreign intelligence agencies
The Death of the Ad Agency Was Widely Publicized
But, like so many industries, advertising turned out to be weathering the digital storm after allA recent surge in jobs could be temporary. But it’s beginning to look as though the iconic ad culture is adjusting to the digital age. There's a film in that too. Probably a lot of them.
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Yes, Even Lizards Can Be Smart
If you catch them at the right time. But can we give machines what the lizard has by nature?
Crows Can Be as Smart as Apes
But they have quite different brains. The intelligence doesn't seem to reside in the details of the mechanism
Is the Future of Work Relentlessly Urban?
Amazon’s new combined New York and Washington headquarters may provide an unintended test
Facial Recognition Aids Persecution of Chinese Christians, Muslims
Western companies still seek business ties with an increasingly authoritarian regimeThe crackdown on religion is said to stem from Xi Jinping, who became President in 2012. After he got term limits removed in March 2018, some have begun to privately call him “Emperor Xi.”
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Google.com or Google.gov?
A political analyst argues that Google is beginning to mesh with governments whose values are compatible with its own.
Yes, the Placebo Effect Is Real, Not a Trick
But the fact that the mind acts on the body troubles materialists. Such facts, they say, require revision