Micro Softy 70: The Light Above Your Stairs
The staircase switch: a tiny puzzle hiding in plain sightTo show off my electrician skills, this week’s Micro Softy is about the light switch on your stairs.
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AI: Artificial Intelligence Review Part 1
Both the film and the short story question the definition of “real,” not realityWhen the scientist proposes creating a robot child who can love, the audience is bound to be asking the obvious question: Is that possible?
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Does the ‘Mind Have its Own Place’?
And does Trump’s Mind Matter When He Echos “Paradise Lost”?Let us not forget that the Founding Fathers of the US Constitution all read, and were probably influenced, by Milton’s poem.
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What is Meta Up To? Big Tech Turns to AI Investment
The social media giant bought a social media site made up of bots.Maybe AI will force us to reckon with the reality of the soul, which I also wager that no computer system can generate.
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Euthanasia of the Mentally Ill Increasing in the Netherlands
Requests for euthanasia on psychiatric grounds have risen sharplyThe Dutch experiment with psychiatric euthanasia, particularly in youth, can no longer be described as cautious, balanced, or exemplary.
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Micro Softy 69: A Bunch of Switches
Where switching theory meets strategyFritz goes in the first day and sees one of the seven switches down and the rest up. He dutifully flips one of the switches.
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Why AI Can’t Create Like We Can
Human beings are endowed with a unique creative force, so why let AI have all the fun?AI belongs to this world of necessity and it is bound by the inputs we give it: code, training data, prompts. It has no imagination.
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2010: The Year We Make Contact Review Part 5
The crew watches Jupiter grow smaller until it explodes, sending shockwaves through the ship.As long as the aliens’ technology is advanced beyond humanity’s comprehension, then there’s no real way to pick apart how they turned the gas planet into a star.
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Demons from the Id
One such strange condition of mental turmoil is schizophrenia.A retired psychotherapist from Arizona who spent some 40 years working in hospitals and prisons with schizophrenic patients, was quite disturbed when his analysis of some patients pointed to the supernatural.
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Six Theories of Consciousness
Everybody talks about AI becoming conscious, but no one ever defines what consciousness is.Who gave consciousness and creativity to whoever or whatever is responsible for simulating us, and who simulated our simulator?
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Micro Softy 68: An Overcrowded Prison
When every flip counts, can Frenchy find his freedom?Problem: If we get one more prisoner, we have to start doubling up cells which is no good.
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Agnosticism, Appearance, and Reality
Regarding God, the evidence for fact and truth on creation and morality is everywherePeople can be agnostic on many things, such as historical events, like the authenticity of the moon landings, who shot JFK, or even the existence of the external world.
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2010: The Year We Make Contact Part 4
The decision is made to keep all the details from HAL.If the robot figures out that he isn’t returning to Earth with the crew, he might object to the plan and decide to continue the mission himself, just like he’d done with Bowman’s crew.
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Of Logic and Lawyers: AI’s Fragile Competence
The case against near‑term legal automation—and the AI blind spots that still matter.First, we must remind ourselves that “data is not the plural of anecdote.”
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Paper Defends Spoken Language in Homo erectus
The first thing that comes to mind in the context of intellectual capabilities is brain size.The descent of the larynx and the hyoid is among the anatomical traits appealing to research on flexibility and complexity in vocal communication.
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Ginny Weasley Teaches Us About the Danger of AI Chatbots for Children
She challenges us to do the hard work of educating other parents on the risks of unfettered access to these tools.The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation examined the unique risks of chatbots harming children. In many ways, this study confirms the obvious.
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Is Berkeley’s Universe a Spiritual Hologram
Berkeley looks from within as his starting point.For Berkeley, God is the basis for improving one’s life, not damaging it, and a common-sense view of life is the best path to achieving such a goal.
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Micro Softy 67: Three Switches and a Song
A mind‑twisting challenge for curious thinkersThe other two switches turn outside lights off and on. Wide Clyde can’t see outside, so he can’t determine which switches control the lights.
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2010: The Year We Make Contact Part 3
Secrets, circuits, and a killer logic loop.When Chandra finds the hidden order, he also finds Floyd’s message, which Bowman had discovered after turning off HAL
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Are Young People Getting Tired of AI?
A new article suggests teens are not universally excited about the blossoming technologyJulie Jargon wrote an interesting piece for The Wall Street Journal about teen attitudes towards AI and found that their view of it isn’t so optimistic as many might assume.
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