Mind Matters News and Analysis on Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Denyse O'Leary

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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 15, 2018
Categorized
Ethics, Machine Learning, Social Factors
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The true cost of “free” social media

It’s free but… are we? George Gilder points a way forward.
Denyse O'Leary
September 15, 2018
He thinks that expected massive increases in computing power will enable blockchain technologies that allow users to safely bypass the global data monopoly that Google and similar firms represent. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 11, 2018
Categorized
Events, Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Google branches out into politics

Unfortunately, the only political model it would likely know is: One-party state
Denyse O'Leary
September 11, 2018

The unchallenged manipulation of search engine results during elections is a new phenomenon made possible by the domination of the internet by a few big players.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 3, 2018
Categorized
Social Factors
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Silicon Valley grew old before it grew up

By April of this year, 100 employees were complaining about the Google groupthink
Denyse O'Leary
September 3, 2018
Quip making the rounds: Would you trust a self-driving car from Google? Answer: Sure, if I needed a car that decided for me where I should go and then just drove me there. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 3, 2018
Categorized
Data Privacy
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Our anonymity may be an illusion

Because we talk about ourselves so much online, few leaked pieces may even be required to identify us. 
Denyse O'Leary
September 3, 2018
Dr. Dinerstein: In what is now a classic study, researchers used de-identified credit card data for 1.1 million people, in 10,000 stores over a three-month period. Using just four pieces of “outside” data they could identify 90% of the shoppers. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 1, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Karl Marx’s Eerie AI Prediction

He felt that capitalism would fall when machines replaced human labor
Denyse O'Leary
September 1, 2018
Because Marx held that the value of goods resided in the labor required to produce them, if goods were produced by automatons, without human labor, the economy would fall apart and capitalism would fail. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 31, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Social Factors
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Could AI Understand the Universe?

World-renowned chemist thinks it might understand what we can’t, including consciousness
Denyse O'Leary
August 31, 2018
Atkins is arguing that the fact that we do not understand what consciousness is, far from being a barrier to creating artificial consciousness, offers the hope that, once we do create them, artificially conscious entities will understand consciousness but we won’t. The proposition sounds a bit confused, no? Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 30, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Work
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Robogeddon!! Pause.

Wait. This just in: AI is NOT killing all our jobs
Denyse O'Leary
August 30, 2018
Jay Richards, author of The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines,sees it as more of a retooling than a meltdown. But retooling does mean change, work, cost, and risk. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 29, 2018
Categorized
Ethics, Social Factors
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Silicon Valley as a Colonial Power

Irish writer asks us to look more carefully at claims about “liberation”
Denyse O'Leary
August 29, 2018
The social media companies will force us to define ourselves over against the specifications of our would-be programmers. And say what you want about the conflict, it will never be dull. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 28, 2018
Categorized
Social Factors
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Giant Google’s Vulnerable Spot

Social media are free because we are both the content and the market
Denyse O'Leary
August 28, 2018
Recently, we looked at philosopher of technology George Gilder’s Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy. But what form would that decline take? A look at the advertising picture offers one clue. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 25, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Ethics for an Information Society

Because machines can’t learn to solve their own ethical problems
Denyse O'Leary
August 25, 2018
AI (machine learning) was probably faster and cheaper but the whole point of the system was supposed to be justice which, whatever the explanation, proved too difficult to calculate… Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 24, 2018
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Do Big Brains Matter to Human Intelligence?

We don’t know. Brain research readily dissolves into confusion at that point
Denyse O'Leary
August 24, 2018

We also know very little about the human brain. Take this controversy about why the large human brain evolved...

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 22, 2018
Categorized
Social Factors
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Hell Is a “Parasocial” Place

Where your "friends" may not even exist
Denyse O'Leary
August 22, 2018
Consumer digital hells can be dreadful indeed but they are mostly of our own making. The companies that profit from them are not forcing us to live in them. That said, students should be taught in school that the internet’s virtual world features a great deal of fakery, including fake friends. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 20, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
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Sometimes the ‘Bots Turn Out To Be Humans

That “lifelike” effect was easier to come by than some might think
Denyse O'Leary
August 20, 2018
Companies sometimes pretend to be using AI or machine learning when they are actually using human employees for various reasons. One reason is that they have promised potential investors more high tech than they can deliver. Sometimes, as we learned recently at The Guardian, it gets a bit sticky... Read More ›
Biometric facial recognition on smartphone. Unlock smartphone as it scans his face.
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 20, 2018
Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors
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Will AI Liberate or Enslave Developing Countries?

Perhaps that depends on who gets there first with the technology
Denyse O'Leary
August 20, 2018
Karl D. Stephan: Zimbabwe, an African country well-known for its human-rights abuses, has received advanced Chinese AI technology from a startup company in exchange for letting the firm have access to the country’s facial-recognition database. So China is helping the government of Zimbabwe to keep tabs on its citizens as well. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 17, 2018
Categorized
Social Factors
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Do children trust robots too much?

Maybe, but more study is needed, say researchers
Denyse O'Leary
August 17, 2018
Children could easily give in to peer pressure from other children to give an incorrect answer in place of a correct one. How much difference it makes that the pressure is supplied by a robot would surely depend on how the child is taught to see robots. Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 17, 2018
Categorized
Business and Finance
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Why Do We Think Money Is Real?

It is actually a constantly shifting network of agreements to trust others
Denyse O'Leary
August 17, 2018

It is actually a constantly shifting network of agreements to trust others. Maria Bustillos, editor of Ethereum’s culturemag, Popula, asks us to think about just what money is before we make up our minds about Bitcoin.

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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 14, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Social Factors
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George Gilder: Life after Google Will Be Okay

People will take ownership of their own data, cutting out the giant “middle man”
Denyse O'Leary
August 14, 2018

In his new book, he calls the successor era he envisions the “cryptocosm,” referring to the private encryption of data, represented by technologies such as blockchain.

Read More ›
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Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 11, 2018
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence
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Why machines can’t think as we do

As philosopher Michael Polanyi noted, much that we know is hard to codify or automate
Denyse O'Leary
August 11, 2018
Human life is full of these challenges. Some knowledge simply cannot be conveyed—or understood or accepted—in a propositional form. For example, a nurse counselor may see clearly that her elderly post-operative patient would thrive better in a retirement home. But she cannot just tell him so. Read More ›