Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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3D illustration, concept image. Embossed mesh representing internet connections in cloud computing.

The Secret Ingredient for AI: Ergodicity

If you don't know the term, you need to

Deep learning used to train AlphaGo data used to train neural networks must display ergodicity: The data to which the computer learning program is exposed must also characterize data that it has not seen. Before applying AI in deep convolutional neural networks, practitioners need to address whether the problem under consideration is “ergodic.” 1 We are rightly amazed when deep learning wins at Atari arcade games using only display pixels. But in doing so, the AI is exposed to the same game again and again (and again). The scenarios change, but the game and its rules remain static. The same is true with chess or GO. When trained and tested against a human opponent, we know that the AI will Read More ›

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Anonymous crowd of people walking street wearing masks during Covid 19 pandemic in New York City

Doom and the Politics of Catastrophe

Setting the catastrophe of the 2020 pandemic in perspective

What happened in 2020? Why was there such confusion, contradicting information about Covid-19, and poor bureaucratic oversight of the pandemic? Setting the catastrophe of 2020 in historical perspective, renowned British historian Niall Ferguson explains why we are getting worse, not better, at handling disasters. The lessons of history that this country — indeed the West as a whole — should be closely heeded if we want to handle the next crisis better and avoid the ultimate doom of irreversible decline. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences. This video is just one of many you can find at the Bradley Center’s YouTube page. There you’ll find several lectures, interviews, and panels dealing with issues that range from Read More ›

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Internet broadband and multimedia streaming entertainment

Infinite Jest Revisited

The 1996 book by David Foster Wallace saw the Internet explosion, and its effects, approaching fast

David Foster Wallace was 34 when his magnum opus Infinite Jest appeared in 1996. He tragically took his life in 2008, but the title he’s known for best remains an awe-inspiring, controversial tome. UnHerd writer Sarah Ditum wrote a great review revisiting the book in which she writes, “He did not see the future. But he saw the forces shaping the future, and understood the ways they would deform people in turn.” Infinite Jest, a 1,000 plus page book with 200 pages of tedious endnotes to boot, imagines an American context not so foreign from our own where entertainment has become so powerful that it hopelessly addicts everyone who encounters it. The Internet was already budding in ’96, but the inevitable Read More ›

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Ocean Sunset Rays

Running from TikTok to Baptism and Truth

AI-powered social media is hurting kids, but look at the simultaneous revival happening, writes Robert J. Marks

“Digital fentanyl.” That’s the evocative term U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc. used to describe TikTok. In Robert J. Marks’ new Newsmax article, he decries the tragic effects of social media on teens. The data is in: social media makes kids depressed. Marks writes, Media-drenched teenage boys without girlfriends feel like social freaks. One in three teenage girls who use social have body image issues.Young adults who use social media are three times as likely to suffer from depression. Depression can lead to suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, female suicides aged 15-24 increased by 87 percent over the past 20 years and male suicides increased by 30 percent. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says suicide is now the second leading Read More ›

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Doctor with virtual reality in operation room in hospital.Surgeon analyzing patient heart testing result and human anatomy on technological digital futuristic virtual interface,digital holographic

Can AI Customize and Individualize Healthcare?

Mundie thinks some aspects of biology are too complex for humans. Could AI help?

Craig Mundie says that his dream is to make artificial intelligence one day rival human intellect. While many worry about more dystopian outcomes as result of that, Mundie sees AI as dual use. In his opinion, it can be used for good or ill just like any other technology. Jay Richards interviews Craig Mundie, President of Mundie & Associates and former Microsoft Chief Research Officer about emerging trends in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), especially for human systems and healthcare. Craig Mundie: “Well, I think the problem is, you need to model all of human biology. In my opinion, human biology is too complicated for humans. It’s just too complicated. So the question is, is it possible that a Read More ›

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3d rendering of Human cell or Embryonic stem cell microscope background.

Scientists Close to Creating Human Embryos from Stem Cells

The “anything goes” ethical peril in biotechnology is all too real

During the great embryonic-stem-cell debate in the early 2000s, I personally witnessed scientists blatantly mislead legislators about biotech issues such as cloning, adult stem cells, and the biological nature of embryos in order to gain funding and/or resist regulations. It was an effective, but disgraceful, tactic that disrespected the democratic process about crucial issues of morality and public policy. Now, with the creation of human “synthetic embryos,” aka, “embryo models, or “embryo replicas,” which are constructed with pluripotent stem cells, I hope we are not slipping back into those bad old days of mendacity. But I worry. A recent story about the breakthrough in Science News contains an incomplete description about human embryology that impacts the ethical stakes about what is being Read More ›

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Machine learning , artificial intelligence , ai , deep learning and future concept. Wireframe Brain connect with circuit electronic graphic and binary code abstract background.Blue tone

The Myth of Artificial Intelligence

Tech entrepreneur Erik J. Larson on why the AI hype is profoundly misplaced

In today’s featured COSM video, watch author Erik J. Larson discusses ideas underlying his book, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence, as well as what he is exploring in his next book, which focuses on the history of the 21st Century so far. Here’s the summary of the book from Amazon: Futurists insist that AI will soon eclipse the capacities of the most gifted human mind. What hope do we have against superintelligent machines? But we aren’t really on the path to developing intelligent machines. In fact, we don’t even know where that path might be. A tech entrepreneur and pioneering research scientist working at the forefront of natural language processing, Erik Larson takes us on a tour of the landscape Read More ›

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Shanghai, China

Big Tech and China

Evaluating the technological competition between the two superpowers

How should the United States deal with China? Jay Richards interviews Dr. Bob Kelly, Managing Partner of Ignition Partners, on a panel he was included in. The panel explored the technological competition between the U.S. and China, what it means for the future, and presented differing schools of thought on how the United States should approach China moving forward. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences. This video is just one of many you can find at the Bradley Center’s YouTube page. There you’ll find several lectures, interviews, and panels dealing with issues that range from economics, Big Tech, and artificial intelligence. Notable speakers include 2022 Kyoto Prize winner Carver Mead, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and George Gilder, co-founder of Discovery Read More ›

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Neon Nanotech in Cyberspace: A 3D Illustration. Generative AI.

From Nanoscale to Waferscale

Sean Lie on the challenges and promises of the future's computing power

In today’s featured video, watch Sean Lie, Chief Hardware Architect at Cerebras Systems, and Pierre de Rochemont, Founder of Frontier Nanosystems, give presentations on the challenges and promising techniques for advancing computing power into the future. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences. This video is just one of many you can find at the Bradley Center’s YouTube page. There you’ll find several lectures, interviews, and panels dealing with issues that range from economics, Big Tech, and artificial intelligence. Notable speakers include 2022 Kyoto Prize winner Carver Mead, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and George Gilder, co-founder of Discovery Institute and author of Life After Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money.

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old vintage monochrome photographs in sepia color are scattered on a wooden table, the concept of genealogy, the memory of ancestors, family ties, memories of childhood

Is Dementia Research Missing the Forest for the Trees?

Sudden bouts of lucidity in people with dementia are understudied, researchers admit

Researchers have begun to ask about the curious fact that persons with obvious dementia sometimes have lucid episodes: “In the last week, Sarah has occasionally said things that were recognizable, startling her family. Most notably, on two occasions, she clearly and unexpectedly told her spouse, “I’m scared. I want you to come with me.” These episodes unsettled him. He reported them to Sarah’s physician, asking for advice. (This case is adapted from one of the author’s [JK] clinical experiences.)” – Peterson A, Clapp J, Largent EA, Harkins K, Stites SD, Karlawish J. What is paradoxical lucidity? The answer begins with its definition. Alzheimers Dement. 2022 Mar;18(3):513-521. doi: 10.1002/alz.12424. Epub 2021 Aug 2. PMID: 34338400; PMCID: PMC8807788. The paper is open Read More ›

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Lazy office worker with feet and socks on table. Useless and relaxing man doing nothing or taking break from work in workstation. Businessman resting during workday. Laziness and relax concept.

ChatGPT: The Perfect Gadget for a Culture in Decline?

ChatGPT is an impersonal machine and can't generate meaning

Dr. Jeffrey Bilbro, professor of English at Grove City College and an editor at The Front Porch Republic, wrote an article for Plough on what he regards as the primary weakness of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Bilbro comes to the issue from a literary background, which means he values the human element in language as a mode of communication. Literature is a “conversation,” requiring sentient minds. He sees ChatGPT as a soulless mechanism that will atrophy our ability to write and diminish our appreciation for good writing. Bilbro writes, LLMs are a technology suited to a decadent culture, one that chases easy profits rather than tackles the real challenges we face. It’s easier to make money rearranging words Read More ›

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A green sprout sprouts from the microprocessor. A symbol of a new startup or business in the IT field of green technologies or biotechnologies. A living beginning in computers and artificial ai

“Emergence”: The College Level Version of “We Don’t Know How”

The word often permits the improbable to be considered probable for the purposes of sounding like science without providing any

For some purposes, emergence is just another word in the dictionary. For example, “caterpillar emergence” (emphasis added) means just that: Caterpillars exiting their eggs. But there is a sneakier way the word is sometimes used in science contexts: It’s a way of pretending we know something we don’t or that something can happen in a certain way — but we have no evidence for that. Consider these examples: “Abiotic emergence of ordered information stored in the form of RNA is an important unresolved problem concerning the origin of life.” – Totani, T. Emergence of life in an inflationary universe. Sci Rep 10, 1671 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0 When used with respect to origin of life, emergence is intended to convey the idea Read More ›

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Atomic weapon. After the US bomber Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. Generative AI

American Prometheus: Destroyer of Worlds

Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" meets the hype and illustrates just how world-changing the atomic bomb was

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” So goes a line from the Hindu sacred text Bhagavad Gita, quoted by none other than J. Robert Oppenheimer, the quantum physicist who headed up the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II. Christopher Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer hit theaters on July 21 and has given audiences a taste of why the “father of the atomic bomb” entertained that haunting, little phrase. Nolan hit this movie out of the park. With a star-studded cast, a juxtaposed and non-linear storytelling mode, and a beautiful soundtrack to boot, some critics are calling it the most important movie of the century. That might be because the production of the atom bomb Read More ›

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Female robot face, Artificial intelligence concept. Generative AI

Westworld: Episode 7 Review

In which Theresa makes a terrible discovery

This episode begins with Bernard having a flashback of his son. It’s a very sad scene that turns out to be a dream sequence. After that, we follow Theresa to Hale’s apartment. In the previous episode, we learned that it was Theresa who was attempting to smuggle data out of the park. In this episode, we figure out why. Hale and the rest of the board plan on firing Ford, and they are concerned that Ford will wipe all the data stored in the park just for spite. He’s refused to allow anyone to back up the data, so Hale has decided to take matters into her own hands, and she enlists Theresa’s help. However, Theresa’s plan to smuggle the Read More ›

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Pipette adding fluid to one of several test tubes

Killing Disease and Living Longer

There are some exciting things happening in biotech that could lead to life extension

In this featured COSM conference video, Matt McIlwain, Managing Director of Madrona Venture Group, moderates a panel on exciting innovations in biotech that are offering new ways to both eliminate diseases and extend life. Panelists include Dr. Steve Meyer, Director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and Dr. Jim Tour, Professor of Chemistry at Rice University. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences and other videos related to artificial intelligence and technology. This video is just one of many you can find at the Bradley Center’s YouTube page. There you’ll find several lectures, interviews, and panels dealing with issues that range from economics, Big Tech, and artificial intelligence. Notable speakers include 2022 Kyoto Prize winner Carver Read More ›

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Scoring the winning points at a basketball game

Sabrina Ionescu’s Hot Hand

When basketball players hit a "streak," does that elevate the probability of success?

Most people believe that athletes sometimes get “hot” or “cold” with their performance elevated or depressed temporarily. For example, Purvis Short, who scored 59 points in an NBA game, said, “You’re in a world all your own. It’s hard to describe. But the basket seems to be so wide. No matter what you do, you know the ball is going to go in.” Similarly, during a timeout in a 2015 game, LeBron James told his teammates to pass the ball to Kevin Love, explaining after the game that, “He had the hot hand, I wanted to keep going to him.” On the other hand, statisticians tell us that streaks are likely even in random coin flips that have a rock-steady Read More ›

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銀河

Of AI and Aliens: Two Philosophers Give Their Thoughts

These sound minds are great resources to draw from in the chaos of our times

Just when you thought our cultural moment couldn’t get any more outlandish, here comes a congressional hearing in which several high-profile individuals claim U.S. intelligence is in possession of “non-human biologics,” a euphemism for “alien stuff.” In a recent YouTube interview, Sean McDowell of Biola University asked philosophers William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland what they thought of extraterrestrial life and its implications. Craig, a philosopher and theologian, said it would have no bearing on his belief in God’s existence, but emotionally, that it would be remarkably unsettling, and would amount to the greatest discovery in the human history. McDowell pivoted from aliens and addressed the question of artificial intelligence, which Moreland, who specializes in the philosophy of mind, was Read More ›

An abstract computer generated fractal design. A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales.

The War on Math Becomes a Fight Over Textbooks

Florida, for example, rejected 54 math textbooks of 132 submitted by publishers on account of political content

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a piece about the war on math, basically an effort to entrench the idea that there is no such thing as reality apart from politics. A slogan for various wars on math has been 2 + 2 = 5. That proposition originated in the totalitarian Soviet Union. It found its way into 1984, in which George Orwell (1903–1950) repudiated totalitarianism, and resurfaced in recent years in the current American education elite. One tactic used that is more subtle than outright messing with the number system is the inclusion of political issues in math problems. Current affairs writer Steven Tucker explains how it works: If you were an author of school textbooks Read More ›

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bright iridescent thread floss for embroidery and needlework

Is the “Threads” App a Bust?

The app originally attracted around 100 million users but has tapered off dramatically.

Within the first week of its existence, “Threads,” the new Twitter-like app from the tech company Meta, saw a colossal decline in usage. The app originally attracted around 100 million users but has tapered off dramatically. Jody Cerrano reports, Zuckerberg’s statements about returning users coincide with estimates from third-party traffic analysts that reported the big dip in Threads users last week. At that time, Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm, said that Threads’ daily active users on iOS and Android were down by 20%. The company added that traffic was not the only thing affected. Time spent on the app per user also fell, according to Sensor Tower, by 50% — from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. On Monday, the analyst Similarweb reported an Read More ›

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Night city panorama with network hologram

AI’s Role in Unlocking Human Potential

Can AI replicate or exceed human knowledge and creativity?

In today’s featured video from a past COSM conference, we ask the question: can artificial intelligence replicate or exceed human knowledge and creativity? What are AI’s implications for the workforce? Oren Etzioni, CEO of Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, George Montañez, Iris and Howard Critchell Professor of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College, Robert J. Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Baylor University, and Matt McIlwain, managing director Madrona Venture Group discuss the new business and career opportunities created by artificial intelligence, and whether AI and humanity will merge at some point in the future. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences. This video is just one of many you can find at Read More ›