Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 19, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Would Google be happier if America were run more like China?

This might be a good time to ask
Mind Matters
October 19, 2018
6
Machine Learning, Social Factors
A leaked internal discussion document, the “Cultural Context Report” (March 2018), admits a “shift toward censorship.” It characterizes free speech as a “utopian narrative,” pointing out that “As the tech companies have grown more dominant on the global stage, their intrinsically American values have come into conflict with some of the values and norms of other countries.” Read More ›
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
October 17, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning
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AI computer chips made simple

The artificial intelligence chips that run your computer are not especially difficult to understand
Jonathan Bartlett
October 17, 2018
7
Machine Learning
Increasingly, companies are integrating“AI chips” into their hardware products. What are these things, what do they do that is so special, and how are they being used? Read More ›
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 17, 2018
Categorized
Data Privacy, Medicine and Health
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The $60 Billion-Dollar Medical Data Market is Coming Under Scrutiny

As a patient, you do not own the data and are not as anonymous as you think
Mind Matters
October 17, 2018
6
Data Privacy, Medicine and Health
Data management companies can come to know a great deal about you; they just don’t know your name—unless, of course, there is a breach of some kind. Time Magazine reported in 2017 that “Researchers have already re-identified people from anonymized profiles from hospital exit records, lists of Netflix customers, AOL online searchers, even GPS data of New York City taxi rides.” One would expect detailed medical data to be even more revelatory. Read More ›
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post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
October 16, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence
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Does information theory support design in nature?

William Dembski makes a convincing case, using accepted information theory principles relevant to computer science
Eric Holloway
October 16, 2018
7
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence
Intelligent design theory is sometimes said to lack any practical application. One straightforward application is that, because intelligence can create information and computation cannot, human interaction will improve computational performance. Read More ›
Background of engine room detail in a steam locomotive
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 15, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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George Gilder explains what’s wrong with “Google Marxism”

In discussion with Mark Levin, host of Life, Liberty & Levin
Mind Matters
October 15, 2018
3
Natural Intelligence
Gilder: Marx’s great error, his real mistake, was to imagine that the industrial revolution of the 19th century, all those railways and “dark, satanic mills” and factories and turbine and the beginning of electricity represented the final human achievement in productivity so in the future what would matter is not the creation of wealth but the redistribution of wealth. Read More ›
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 15, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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Do we just imagine design in nature?

Or is seeing design fundamental to discovering and using nature’s secrets?
Mind Matters
October 15, 2018
3
Natural Intelligence
Michael Egnor reflects on the way in which the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has so often gone to those who intuit or impose desire or seek the purpose of things. Read More ›
Ice cream chocolate and vanilla sundae topping with red cherry.
Type
post
Author
Jay Richards
Date
October 12, 2018
Categorized
Philosophy of Mind
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A Short Argument Against the Materialist Account of the Mind

You can simply picture yourself eating a chocolate ice cream sundae.
Jay Richards
October 12, 2018
5
Philosophy of Mind
We have thoughts and ideas—what philosophers call “intentional” states—that are about things other than themselves. We don’t really know how this works. But whenever we speak to another person, we assume it must be true. And in our own case, we know it’s true. Even to deny it is to affirm it. Read More ›
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 12, 2018
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Does brain stimulation research challenge free will?

If we can be forced to want something, is the will still free?
Michael Egnor
October 12, 2018
8
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
The materialist interpretation of Reilly’s work is a misunderstanding of what the research actually shows. The stimulations did not evoke complex abstract intentions and acts—the patients didn’t reflexively decide to do integral calculus or donate to Amnesty International. Read More ›
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 11, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Hacks damage Facebook, kill Google+

The internet changes everything. For example, it makes the Big Guys more vulnerable, not less vulnerable, than bit players
Mind Matters
October 11, 2018
5
Machine Learning, Social Factors
Facebook gets blamed for everything from what Russia does to what American voters do. But the people who seem to think Mark Zuckerberg and company have superpowers for changing the world are mistaken. Facebook was not able to fend off a damaging hack. Read More ›
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 11, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Did AI teach itself to “not like” women?

No, the program did not teach itself anything. But the situation taught the company something important about what we can safely automate.
Mind Matters
October 11, 2018
4
Machine Learning, Social Factors

Back in 2014, it was a “holy grail” machine learning program, developed in Scotland, that would sift through online resumes, using a one-to-five star rating system and cull the top five of 100, saving time and money. Within a year, a problem surfaced: It was “not rating candidates for software developer jobs and other technical posts in a gender-neutral way.”

Read More ›
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
October 11, 2018
Categorized
Events, Natural Intelligence, Social Factors
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The Spiritual Side of a Digital Society

Spiritual issues surface when software is everywhere
Jonathan Bartlett
October 11, 2018
4
Events, Natural Intelligence, Social Factors
The more that software encompasses the whole of life, the more it needs to take into account the whole of the person using it. Read More ›
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 9, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part II

In a word, no. Your brain doesn't "think"; YOU think, using your brain
Michael Egnor
October 9, 2018
6
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
The brain understands nothing, imagines nothing, sees nothing. It wills nothing. We understand, we imagine, we see, and we will, using our brains. Read More ›
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post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
October 9, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part I

A reply to computational neuroscientist Anil Seth's recent TED talk
Michael Egnor
October 9, 2018
5
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
His talk is a breathtaking compendium of fallacies on the mind and the brain. We can learn a lot from him—by understanding the errors into which he falls and the way out of those errors. Read More ›
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Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 8, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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I, Robot, am gathering dust in the sales room …

Why do robotics experts think that customers will warm to robots because they look like people?
Denyse O'Leary
October 8, 2018
3
Machine Learning, Social Factors
The underlying assumption is surely incorrect. Robots like the Roomba succeed in part because they don’t look or act like people, let alone threaten people. They just do jobs people would prefer not to do or maybe can’t. Read More ›
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 8, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Google boss quits, writes satirical novel

The novel is said to be so far-fetched that it captures the environment
Mind Matters
October 8, 2018
4
Machine Learning, Social Factors
Recently, we’ve looked at a number of complaints about the way Silicon Valley is acquiring too much power over people’s lives, at home and abroad, and reaching deep into the compulsory school system as well. A former employee decided to respond creatively. Read More ›
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Type
post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 5, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Remember those awful Seventies TV ads?

The new “attention economy” killed that kind of advertising. But what now?
Mind Matters
October 5, 2018
4
Machine Learning, Social Factors
One way of describing the change is that we now live in an attention economy rather than a captive time economy, so far as advertising is concerned. Read More ›
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post
Author
Mind Matters
Date
October 5, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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People-friendly robots company shuts down

The “cobots,” robots that can work with people, got the pink slip—for now
Mind Matters
October 5, 2018
4
Machine Learning, Social Factors
Robotics is a business like any other. The individual good idea requires a business plan that can survive savage years in the wilderness before the buyout. That said, we certainly haven’t heard the last of the cobot, which may be one of the ideas that make robotics practical for everyday business. Read More ›
Portraits of people thinking
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
October 4, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Who built AI? You did, mostly

Along with millions of others, you are providing free training data
Jonathan Bartlett
October 4, 2018
5
Machine Learning, Social Factors
For AI to work you need data. The most innovative players in the AI space have learned how to get users to willingly and gladly provide them with data for free. Read More ›