Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

ArchiveArticles

T-Rex side profile
Tyrannosaurus Rex close up on dark background. - Image

Jurassic World: Dominion Review Part 1

Too many unanswered questions and gaping plot holes in the grand finale

Like so many kids in my generation, one of the things that prompted my interest in science was the iconic movie, Jurassic Park, and also, like so many kids of my generation, Jurassic Park Three left me furious. Once the dinosaurs started talking, I was out. Then came Jurassic World, and I was left unimpressed but unoffended, so I called it good enough. And the last movie in the second trilogy left me in a similar boat. It fixed one of the big issues I had with Jurassic Park Three, so I can’t really say this is a bad movie. That being said, it is an excellent example of bad writing. The problem with the film is that it’s convoluted, Read More ›

imagination
Book of Wonders: A Magical Book who makes dreams come true - Digital Art Design, unique illustration concept | Generative AI

What Can’t A.I. Do? Quite a Lot, Actually

NYT columnist David Brooks makes a list of uniquely human skills that students should develop in college

In an increasingly artificial world, how are we to remain human? New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an opinion article this week seeking to answer that question. Brooks notes some of the benefits of “machine learning,” but also lists some of the characteristics artificial intelligence will forever fail to embody. “A.I. will probably give us fantastic tools that will help us outsource a lot of our current mental work,” he writes. “At the same time, A.I. will force us humans to double down on those talents and skills that only humans possess.” Uniquely Human Traits What are some of these “talents and skills” that people should intentionally develop in the age of A.I.? Brooks says an incoming college student Read More ›

satellite image of china
Planet Earth from Space People's Republic of China highlighted, elements of this image courtesy of NASA

War With China: Who Will Win?

Has the United States lost its status of military superiority?

General Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command and 50,000 US service members, said, “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight [China] in 2025.” China’s invasion of Taiwan might spark this war. Predictably, the politically obedient Department of Defense (DOD) responded “comments [by Minihan] are not representative of the department’s view on China.” “Views” can be unimportant. Whether or not General Minihan is correct is important. Who would win the war between the US and China? Many are pessimistic about the chances of the United States being the victor. Here are short summaries (with links) of a few disturbing opinions from those who should know. So, how is the US doing?  Here are some disturbing Read More ›

dead knight
Fragment of a medieval sarcophagus with a figure of a knight

The Dead Hopes of Digital Immortality

If eternal life is attainable, it will be found by working on one’s soul in faith, not by developing ever-more-advanced AI computers

Reprinted from National Review with permission from the author. Transhumanists pursue the dream of immortality by hoping to upload their minds into computers — as if the mimicking software would be them. No, it would be a computer program, nothing more. They would still be dead and gone. And here’s another somewhat less ambitious approach to the same goal. Apparently a company is developing technology that would allow you to speak to loved ones after you shuffle off this mortal coil. From the Vice story: The founder of a top metaverse company says that the fast-moving development of ChatGPT has pushed the timeline for one of his most ambitious and eccentric projects up by a matter of years. In an interview with Motherboard, Somnium Space’s Artur Read More ›

data transfer
Big data technology and data science illustration. Data flow concept. Querying, analysing, visualizing complex information. Neural network for artificial intelligence. Data mining. Business analytics.

ChatGPT Violates Its Own Model

Based on these exchanges, we can at least say the chatbot is more than just the ChatGPT neural network

Here is a quick overview of how ChatGPT operates under the hood. This will make it easier to spot suspicious behavior. The following is at a very high level.  For the gory details, see the following two guides: – The Illustrated GPT-2 (Visualizing Transformer Language Models) – Jay Alammar – Visualizing machine learning one concept at a time. (jalammar.github.io) – The GPT-3 Architecture, on a Napkin (dugas.ch) What is ChatGPT? Let’s start with what ChatGPT is. ChatGPT is a kind of machine learning algorithm known as a neural network. To understand what a neural network is, recall your algebra classes. You remember being given a set of equations and being told to solve for some variables. Then you learned you Read More ›

robot at typewriter
A robot typing on a rypewritter, generating text, artificial intelligence illustration, generative ai

Tech Journal CNET Used AI to Write Articles

A writer laments CNET's reckless embrace of AI generated content

The prominent technology journal CNET has used AI to generate some of its articles, although the results have been embarrassing. Apart from general outrage from critics, who claim this maneuver will obliterate the need for entry-level writers, the unspecified AI system made lots of errors. Jon Christian gives an example of the AI’s “boneheaded” work in a Futurism report, To calculate compound interest, use the following formula: Initial balance (1+ interest rate / number of compounding periods) ^ number of compoundings per period x number of periods  For example, if you deposit $10,000 into a savings account that earns 3% interest compounding annually, you’ll earn $10,300 at the end of the first year.“ It sounds authoritative, but it’s wrong. In reality, Read More ›

phone in the dark
Asian woman playing game on smartphone in the bed at night,Thailand people,Addict social media

Surgeon General Says 13 is Too Young to Have Social Media

The public official warned against the addictive nature of social media and how it affects children's self worth

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy believes that age 13 is too young for children to start using social media, noting that their sense of self is still developing. Murthy gave his remarks on “CNN Newsroom,” saying, I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early … It’s a time where it’s really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children.” Murthy’s remarks go hand in hand with a formidable body of research that shows the negative correlation between social media use and teens’ mental Read More ›

surveillance
Video camera lens

China Leads the World in Face Recognition Exports

The global power is exporting the AI to weak and autocratic countries, according to a report from Brookings Institute

China is the world’s leading exporter of facial recognition technology, according to a study conducted by researchers from Harvard and MIT. The study aimed to elucidate the ramifications of the AI revolution and what it means for such technology to be exported from a global power like China. They found that China is more likely than other countries to export AI technology to other countries. China also focuses on exporting facial recognition to countries with weak democracies that are experiencing social unrest and upheaval. Political motivation might be driving such trades. The authors write, The Chinese government’s demand for surveillance and political control translates into more exports of AI. Moreover, our finding that autocrats and would-be autocrats abroad demand surveillance Read More ›

isaac newton and the apple
Law of Universal Gravitation education funny concept. Isaac Newton under an apple tree

Blinded by a Defunct Theory

The "interaction problem" is everywhere we look in physics, but the dogma of materialism remains

Materialism. What a weird word. It sounds like a ghost, materializing in front of me. And it is sort of like a ghost, one that has mysteriously taken over the minds of many intelligent people. Because they believe in materialism, these smart people don’t believe in ghosts. Especially the ghost in the machine. The problem is there is no way for the ghost to interact with the machine. This is known as the “mind-body interaction problem”.  The great thing about materialism is at least that theory doesn’t have an interaction problem. Any material thing can interact with any other material thing. Yet there is a deep irony. Let’s explore the idea of materialism to see why. Materialism is the idea that reality only consists of matter. Read More ›

AI warfare
Close-up, a small town, a village with small houses, a river, a bridge, roads and other strategically important objects to be under the gun and shadowed. Concept of computer game and spying on people

US Military Updates Autonomous Killer Robot Policy

Like it or not, properly vetted AI autonomous weapons are in the future of US adversaries and in ours as well

The Pentagon has updated its policy on the use of artificially intelligent autonomous weapons. Autonomous means the weapon can operate on its own without human oversight. As unpacked in my book, The Case for Killer Robots, technology wins wars and gives pause to potentially dangerous adversaries.  This includes autonomous AI systems currently under development in the US, China and elsewhere. When there is an option, a human should be given oversight of the AI to avoid unexpected contingencies. But this is not always wise when (1) autonomy gives an overwhelming strategic advantage, (2) communication with remote AI is unwise or not possible, and (3) when events unfold faster than a human can respond. Imagine, for example, being attacked by a large swarm of armed drones. Read More ›

person at the internet
Business man works in office with laptop. Concept of internet network. double exposure

Why ChatGPT Won’t Replace Google

With Google, the algorithm eventually leads you to content made by real people. With ChatGPT, you never leave the algorithm

To some extent, ChatGPT is a newer, easier-to-use interface than Google.  Unlike Google, it doesn’t make you waste time by visiting those pesky websites.  It not only looks into its database for content, but it also summarizes it for you as paragraphs. There is a problem lurking in there, however.  Being computers, neither Google nor ChatGPT cares about the truth.  They are algorithms, and they merely do as they are told.  Additionally, you can’t code the human mind into algorithms.  However, there is a fundamental difference between what ChatGPT does and what Google does that will prevent content generators like ChatGPT from displacing search engines like Google: Google eventually lets you out of its system. Ultimately, the goal of search Read More ›

college campus
Cherry trees in full bloom at the University of Washington campus

Goodhart’s Law and Scientific Innovation in Academia

Many university researchers are leaving academia so they can actually get things done

British economist Charles Goodhart was a financial advisor to the Bank of England from 1968 to 1985, a period during which many economists (“monetarists”) believed that central banks should ignore unemployment and interest rates. Instead, they believed that central banks should focus on maintaining a steady rate of growth of the money supply. The core idea was that central banks could ignore economic booms and busts because they are short-lived and self-correcting (Ha! Ha!) and should, instead, keep some measure of the money supply growing at a constant rate in order to keep the rate of inflation low and constant. The choice of which money supply to target was based on how closely it was statistically correlated with GDP. The Read More ›

galaxy quest tunnel
flying into tunnel, sci-fi spaceship corridor. Futuristic technology abstract seamless for tech titles and background. graphic network, big data, data center, server, internet, speed. 3D render

Galaxy Quest Review Part 2: The Show Goes On

The movie isn't perfect, but it's fun, and definitely better than The Orville Season Three...

Last time, we began our review of Galaxy Quest, a true parody of Star Trek. In the previous review, we’d ended with Jason Nesmith encountering a group of aliens which had mistaken the campy television show called Galaxy Quest for a record of Earth’s history, and therefore, had modeled their technology after the tv show. The cast found it impossible to explain to the aliens that they were actors and must now find a way to stop Sarris, the alien threatening to wipe out this race which has asked for their help called the Thermians. Jason and the rest of the cast are led to the bridge to negotiate with Sarris, who, of course, does not wish to surrender at Read More ›

cubism AI
Generative AI. Abstract face portrait as a cubism art. Concept of creative shapes graphics with textured geometric shapes. Geometric face.

The Lensa Magic Avatar Feature Needs Attention

The app uses Stable Diffusion and can generate inappropriate and grotesque material

We’ve covered ChatGPT, OpenAI’s new text generator, quite a bit the last few weeks here at Mind Matters, but lest we forget, AI has made great strides in image generation, too. Another explosive AI tool is Lensa, an app that uses Midjourney’s Stable Diffusion model. Lensa was first developed by Prisma Labs in 2018 as a photo editing tool, but in late 2022, it added the “Magic Avatar” feature, which allows users to recreate their portraits artistically. Since then, it has skyrocketed to popularity alongside its AI cousin, ChatGPT. Despite its reputation as a “fun app,” some users have complained that the app produced sexualized and racialized avatars of themselves. In an Insider article, Bethany Biron writes, Melissa Heikkilä, a Read More ›

living forever
Abstract image of Artificial Intelligence

Do You Really Want to Live Forever?

Organizations like Altos Labs are funding research in cell rejuvenation and biological longevity

2023 is expected to yield “breakthrough” research in aging treatments, led by the Palo Alto medical company Altos Labs. Jeff Bezos is among the donors of the organization, which notes on its homepage that its mission is “to restore cell health and resilience through cellular rejuvenation programming to reverse disease, injury, and the disabilities that can occur throughout life.” A Wired article is optimistic about the direction of the research and compares its potential to the development of antibiotic treatment. Andrew Steele writes, In 2023, early success of these treatments could kickstart the greatest revolution in medicine since the discovery of antibiotics. Rather than going to the doctor when we’re sick and picking off age-related problems like cancer and dementia Read More ›

group-of-young-teen-using-smart-phone-for-internet-online-with-happy-feeling-stockpack-adobe-stock
Group of young teen using smart phone for internet online with happy feeling

What To Do About Destructive Social Media?

Social media consists largely of "free" services that charge by taking time-slices of one's life. Is that fact outweighing the positive effects?

(This article by Karl D. Stephan originally appeared at Engineering Ethics Blog (January 23, 2023) under the title “Conservative Futurism and the Internet,” and is reprinted with permission.) In the Winter 2023 issue of The New Atlantis, lawyer and author John Ehrett points out that the bloom of enthusiasm that greeted the advent of the Internet has now faded from that particular rose.  There is now a consensus that the negative effects of social media in particular, and also the whole economic basis of “free” services that charge by taking time-slices of one’s life, may have begun to outweigh the positive effects.  The question is, what to do about it? Rather than simply parrot various policy ideas that are floating around—as he puts Read More ›

boy with iphone
Young man watching a live streaming on his phone

Researchers Find Social Media Affects Amygdala in Kids

Study finds that social media apps heighten sensitivity to peer approval in social settings

A recent study from the University of North Carolina found that social media use affected the brain matter in children, particularly the amygdala, which processes reward and punishment. Per an article from Neoscope, an imprint of Futurism, Researchers from the University of North Carolina have found, in one of the first studies of its kind, that habitually checking social feeds may change the ways early adolescents process social rewards and punishments — changes concrete enough that they can be seen as distinct and divergent neural pathways in brain scans.” Noor Al-Sabai, Scientists Find Something Strange in Brain Scans of Kids Hooked on Social Media (futurism.com) The researchers found that students who checked social media more frequently experienced greater sensitivity to their Read More ›

AI taking exam
Generative AI illustration of cute little robot reading assignment on paper during exam at school

AI Can Pass the MBA Exam, Wharton Professor Says

In the wake of ChatGPT uproar, its abilities (and limits) are becoming better understood

OpenAI’s ChatGPT passed the Master of Business Administration (MBA) exam according to a news report from NBC. Professor Christian Terwiesch of Wharton, who conducted the research and authored a paper on the matter, said that the bot scored somewhere in the B range on the exam, and that this has major implications for education. The report is just another in a flux of news and concerns about AI invading the spheres of education and academia. Terwiesch wrote, [The bot’s score shows] remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates including analysts, managers, and consultants.” Despise its apparent advancement, the bot did Read More ›

dissolving metaverse
introduction to the metaverse universe. Man wearing augmented reality glasses for future technology. transition to the virtual world.

More Bad News for the Metaverse

Virtual reality projects are losing steam across the tech industry in the wake of layoffs and investor skepticism

Big tech companies across the spectrum, including Meta, Microsoft, and Apple, are scaling back on virtual reality research and development. The technological demands of the metaverse are more advanced than CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg have anticipated, and employees are feeling the impact. Microsoft recently laid off 10,000 workers, cutting funding from the lab responsible for the production of its mixed-reality “HoloLens.” The army was originally in the works to use the Microsoft lens for aids in combat and training, but the technology has since been labeled as “dangerous and poorly designed.” Meta laid off 11,000 employees last November and continues to struggle to gain interest and traction for its ambitious metaverse project. A report from Insider notes that a combination Read More ›

google on ipad
Bangkok, Thailand 25 AUG 2020. Men hand using digital tablet for search information on Google.  Wireless Smartphone technology with intelligence search engine.

U.S. Department of Justice Sues Google (Again)

The DOJ claims the tech giant is unlawfully monopolizing the digital advertising market

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing Google, claiming the technology company has monopolized the digital advertising market. This marks the second federal anti-trust suit against Google. Google has led the digital advertising market for years, although companies like TikTok and Amazon are becoming more viable competitors. Despite the competition, Google still raked in $209B in advertising in 2021, per a briefing from 1440 News, and its 2022 financial report is expected to disclose similar numbers. The official complaint notes the benefit and importance of a “vibrant internet” in American life but emphasizes the centrality of economic diversity and competition. Section 4 of the complaint claims “the ad tech space is broken,” further explaining,   One industry behemoth, Google, Read More ›