Peter Biles

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Peter Biles
Date
January 13, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
AI, art, chatbots, ChatGPT, Creativity, Creativity and AI writing tools, journalism, Literature, Wall Street Journal, Writing}

Will ChatGPT Replace Human Writers?

_{Some people think so. But maybe they’re mistaken about the purpose and nature of language} _{Peter Biles
January 13, 2023

5

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

In the wake of the notorious ChatGPT chatbot from OpenAI, many are asking, “What’s going to happen to people who make their living as writers?” We’re talking journalists, novelists, academics, etcetera. It’s a valid question given the dexterity of the new technology. OpenAI’s DALL-E image generator poses the same question to visual artists. If a machine can generate a skillfully crafted piece of text or an image, the need for human writers and artists turns opaque. That is if we actually think artificial and natural intelligence are comparable competitors. Cynics are claiming a doomsday for writers. Sean Thomas of the Spectator thinks doomsday is upon us. He wrote in a January 10th article, I’ve done writing of all kinds Read More ›

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Peter Biles
Date
January 8, 2023

Categorized
Addiction

Tagged
Featured}

This New Year, Resolve to Dive Headfirst into Life

_{Dr. Anna Lembke urges people to abandon isolating addictions and choose honesty and relationship instead} _{Peter Biles
January 8, 2023

4

Addiction}

With the new year in full swing, people are considering resolutions and asking themselves what habits they need to change. For me, my negative habits almost entirely revolve around technology. Too much time checking social media, email, browsing Twitter and YouTube, going down the cat video abyss. Skimming news, articles, photos, and videos, diminishes the attention span and leaves one feeling empty, restless, and in greater need of a “fix.” It’s a socially acceptable drug, but no less addicting than the others. Lembke, medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine, asks us in her book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton 2021), Why, in a time of unprecedented wealth, freedom, technological progress, and medical advancement, do we appear to be Read More ›

Aerial view of Frankenstein Castle in southern Hesse, Germany

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Peter Biles
Date
January 7, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Transhumanism

Tagged
Andrew Klavan, Arts & Culture, Featured, Frankenstein, Literature, Machines, Mary Shelley, Materialism, science, Science fiction, transhumanism}

The Prophecies of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

_{Andrew Klavan explores the world of the Romantics in new book and finds special insight in Shelley’s classic horror story} _{Peter Biles
January 7, 2023

4

Arts & Culture, Transhumanism}

Andrew Klavan, acclaimed novelist and host of the Andrew Klavan Show at the Daily Wire, wrote a book about his profound encounters with the Romantics of the 19th century, called The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus. The Romantics include literary figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats. While it’s common to highlight the Romantics’ veneration of nature, they were also living in the throes of the Enlightenment, in which atheistic materialism was becoming a minority alternative to theism. Klavan writes, “The wonderful success of science at explaining the material world threatens to create in scientists a bias towards Read More ›

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Peter Biles
Date
January 4, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, chatbots, ChatGPT, Creativity, education, higher education, human brain, mind, Technology, Wall Street Journal, Writing}

Students Depend on ChatGPT for Final Exams

_{The new bot will only get better from here, but it won’t help students become better thinkers} _{Peter Biles
January 4, 2023

4

Artificial Intelligence}

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence chatbot, has made headlines for over a month now, and for good reason. It’s an advanced bot designed to problem solve. It can “converse” with people on a range of topics. A problem for us to solve now is how to deal with ChatGPT’s invasion into the sphere of education. Students report using ChatGPT on final exams and papers according to a recent write-up from The College Fix. One College of Staten Island student used the bot on both final exams and “got As on both.” He commented that “half the kids in my class used it.” The student also noted that he used the chatbot to complete a multiple-choice exam, on which he got Read More ›

A man on the background of a gloomy city

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Peter Biles
Date
December 29, 2022

Categorized
Technocracy

Tagged
Christian, COVID-19, CS Lewis, Eastern Orthodox, First Things, government, Paul Kingsnorth, Scientism, Technology, totalitarianism}

Science, Safety, & Slavery to the State

_{Revisiting a 2022 conversation between Paul Kingsnorth and Jonathan Pageau} _{Peter Biles
December 29, 2022

4

Technocracy}

Paul Kingsnorth is a writer and novelist living in Ireland who operates a Substack account called the Abbey of Misrule. For years his work has focused on the many forms of civilizational control that human beings seek to exert over their fellow man and how such power, whether it be technological, governmental, or corporate, diminishes our humanity and freedom. He is also a newly converted Christian, and he wrote his conversion story for First Things last summer, which you can find here. In April, Kingsnorth joined Jonathan Pageau on his YouTube channel. Pageau is an Eastern Orthodox iconographer from Canada. In their discussion, Kingsnorth uses the word “Machine” to describe the massive technological control that’s now not so subtly creeping up on many western countries. From Read More ›

Disintegrating reaching hands concept illustration in vaporwave style color palette isolated on blue background.

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post

Peter Biles
Date
December 15, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Artists and AI art, chatbots, ChatGPT, Human exceptionalism, human uniqueness, Midjourney, Plough}

What is Art Without the Human Mind?

_{AI art tools can wow us with technical skill, but fail to generate meaning} _{Peter Biles
December 15, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

There’s no doubt that tools like OpenAI can create impressive, detailed renderings of images. Type in “Master Yoda riding a musk ox in Taiwan” and you’ll get…something. A friend of mine sent me a two-headed bunny dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi and a few other comic horrors, and I knew he’d been playing around with an AI art tool. But, it doesn’t take much reflection to feel that something important is missing in these artificially generated images. Sure, they’re detailed and colorful, and accurate. You can type in a scene and have it pop up on command. However, what do actual human artists think of these tools, and what do they essentially miss? Artist Peter Mohrbacher gave a balanced assessment of Read More ›

Businessmen and robot having discussion. Future reality, artificial intellect. Humans vs robots.

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Peter Biles
Date
December 8, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence}

An Intelligent Design Debate With a Chatbot

_{Discovery Institute Fellow stumps OpenAi’s new chatbot in just a few rounds} _{Peter Biles
December 8, 2022

3

Artificial Intelligence}

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow William Dembski had an interesting “conversation” with OpenAI’s new ChatGPT this week on the topic of intelligent design. He shared a transcript of the exchange with Mind Matters. Dembski started by asking, “What is intelligent design?” ChatGPT gave this coherent, but notably biased, response: Intelligent design is the belief that certain features of the universe and living things show signs of having been designed by an intelligent cause. It is often seen as an alternative to the theory of evolution, which proposes that species have changed over time through natural processes. Proponents of intelligent design argue that certain features of the natural world are too complex to have evolved through natural processes, and therefore must have Read More ›

Chat bot Robot Online Chatting Communication Business Internet Technology Concept

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Peter Biles
Date
December 5, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Andy Crouch, Artificial Intelligence, chatbots, Computers, Elon Musk, Human exceptionalism, human exceptionalism (vs. computers), OpenAI, Twitter}

OpenAI Launches Impressive New Chatbot: ChatGPT

_{The sophisticated AI tool could revolutionize the internet, and come with big cost} _{Peter Biles
December 5, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence}

Artificial intelligence is making great strides in 2022. A few months ago, the company OpenAI introduced DALL-E, a text-to-image generator, which they made open to the public. Some have raised concerns over the future role of artists and copyright issues considering AI art generators. Does AI pose a threat to human creators? Well, that question just got weightier and more multifaceted. OpenAI just released ChatGPT, what writer Jacob Carpenter calls, “the most advanced, user-friendly chatbot to enter the public domain.” ChatGPT can “write lines of code, pen a college-level essay, author responses in the voice of a pirate, and write a piano piece in Mozart’s style.” Carpenter goes on to point out that some are wondering if the chatbot threatens Read More ›

Hand holding smart phone with abstract glowing squares

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post

Peter Biles
Date
December 1, 2022

Categorized
Technocracy

Tagged
1984, Cell phone, COVID-19, Data Mining, government-policy, Technocracy}

The Government Can Bug Your Phone

_{Discovery Institute Fellow Debra Saunders raises the alarm of present-day technocratic measures} _{Peter Biles
December 1, 2022

2

Technocracy}

Debra J. Saunders, a fellow at Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership, wrote an article for The Daily Caller this week on the mounting problem of privacy regarding cell phone usage. Saunders expresses concern about the ease in which government and Big Tech companies can mine data and track people through their cell phones. Saunders thinks the COVID pandemic sped up the process of privacy violations. She recalls a 2021 incident in which the state of Massachusetts purportedly worked with Google to download a COVID tracker app without users’ notice or consent. Now, the state is facing a lawsuit. Saunders reports, The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a class-action lawsuit this month against the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to end Read More ›

Unemployed hold cardboard box and laptop bag, dossier and drawing tube in box. Quiting a job, businessman fired or leave a job concpet.

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post

Peter Biles
Date
November 23, 2022

Categorized
Social Media

Tagged
Big Tech, Elon Musk, Employees, Facebook, Finance, Futurism, Mark Zuckerberg, metaverse, Twitter}

Twitter Gets Blasted While Meta Struggles

_{While Musk’s every move is being scrutinized, Zuckerberg’s struggles fall to the wayside} _{Peter Biles
November 23, 2022

4

Social Media}

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and founder of PayPal, radically reorganized Twitter in October and November, and now, is the subject of much criticism from the media. He has laid off hundreds of employees and fired the advisory board. In addition, he reinstated the formerly suspended accounts of Jordan Peterson, parody news site The Babylon Bee, and most outrageously, former president Donald Trump. A few days ago, somehow it was assumed across the Twitter sphere that the entire platform was about to implode. I started seeing people post things like, “If this is my last tweet, I’m okay with that…” Not sure what was happening, I experienced a sudden flood of similar tweets prophesying the Twitter era’s impending Read More ›

Hand touch metaverse infinite loop unlimited technology futuristic digital connection background of virtual reality cyberpunk world or internet game innovation cyber network and hologram experience.

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Peter Biles
Date
November 20, 2022

Categorized
Social Media

Tagged
Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, metaverse, social media, Technology, Twitter}

Big Layoffs Ahead for Zuckerberg’s Meta

_{Employee downsizing at the social media giant casts doubt on its relevancy and future} _{Peter Biles
November 20, 2022

4

Social Media}

With recent headlines highlighting Elon Musk’s Twitter, Meta’s ongoing troubles have escaped some of the limelight, but are significant, nonetheless. This past week, Mark Zuckerberg announced over 11,000 layoffs across his company, focusing on recruiting and business, according to a memo. The layoffs will affect some 13 percent of the tech giant’s 87,000 employees. Meta, due in large part to its optimistic investment in the metaverse, plummeted in value this past year, and workers are feeling the consequences. While the tech industry is seeing high personnel cuts this year, Zuckerberg did not have to hire as many people as he did, and clearly depended too much on the metaverse project for profit, which looks like it won’t be nearly Read More ›

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Peter Biles
Date
November 14, 2022

Categorized
Global Technology

Tagged
China, Climate change, COSM, economy, Electric vehicles, Global economy, Lithium, smart cars}

Are Electric Cars Really the Future?

_{Panelists at the 2022 COSM conference discuss the pros and cons of electric vehicles} _{Peter Biles
November 14, 2022

5

Global Technology}

On November 10th, the COSM conference hosted a special panel on electric vehicles (EVs for short). Brian Mistele, founder and CEO of Inrix, a leading provider of traffic information, car services, and transportation analytics, moderated the discussion. Aside from Mistele, the panel included Howard Hayden, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut and editor of The Energy Advocate, Walter Myers, Principal Manager on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-based platform, and Tony Posawatz, an automotive industry pioneer and chief executive of Fisker Automotive. They brought a range of perspectives on the pros and cons of EVs and where the auto industry is heading. Posawatz kicked off the panel by giving a brief overview of automobile history. He said, There was electric and folks Read More ›

Crowd of people on the street. No recognizable faces

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post

Peter Biles
Date
November 12, 2022

Categorized
Creativity, Economics

Tagged
COSM, superabundance}

Living in a Superabundant Age

_{Marian L. Tupy talks economics, falling birth rates, and human creativity at the COSM conference} _{Peter Biles
November 12, 2022

4

Creativity, Economics}

On November 10th, Marian L. Tupy, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, spoke at this year’s COSM technology summit on behalf of his new book Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet. Tupy co-wrote the book with Gale L. Pooley, a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and associate professor of business management at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. Their book takes a contrarian view of economics, scarcity, and the idea that an excessive human population diminishes the world’s resources. As the book’s title suggests, Tupy and Pooley take the opposite view: the world’s resources increase with population growth. During the COSM session, Tupy said, The caveman had the same natural resources at their Read More ›

Metaverse and 3D simulation. Portrait of young woman in VR glasses creates mesh sphere. Dark background with neon abstracts. The concept of virtual reality and futurism

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Peter Biles
Date
November 1, 2022

Categorized
Social Media

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, community, COVID-19, friendship, Mark Zuckerberg, Metaverse (living in metaverse)}

Is Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Doomed to Fail?

_{Meta is losing loads of money, putting the whole metaverse project into question} _{Peter Biles
November 1, 2022

4

Social Media}

Over the last two years, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has poured millions of dollars into his immersive metaverse project, which he believes represents the future of digital technology. We’ve seen ad campaigns for the Meta virtual reality headsets, a total rebranding of Zuckerberg’s company, and an unquestioned optimism about the efficacy and popularity of online life. But the company Meta is losing money. Lots of it. Zuckerberg pledged to spend $10 billion a year towards the metaverse over the next decade, showing how committed he is to achieving his vision. The company, however, plummeted this past year, losing approximately $600 billion of its market value. People simply aren’t investing in it as Zuckerberg anticipated, and even certain Meta executives doubt Read More ›

Military artificial intelligence arms race to produce an AI enabled army with autonomous robot soldiers and weapon systems, conceptual illustration

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post

Peter Biles
Date
October 27, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous drones, Culture, military technology, Robots, Technology, warfare}

Robots, Drones, and Modern Warfare

_{Robots might not take over the world like the sci-fi movies depict, but AI in modern warfare threatens much destruction} _{Peter Biles
October 27, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence}

You might remember the blockbuster movie I, Robot (2004) starring Will Smith, who plays a tough-minded homicide detective named Del Spooner in Chicago in the year 2035. Humanoid robots serve humanity and have become incorporated into society. Still, ever since a robot saved Del at the expense of a little girl, he hates them and thinks they will eventually overrun the world. I, Robot imagines a society in which AI could physically overtake humanity. The technology we’ve created for our own use ends up using us, unto our own destruction. Movies like I, Robot, Terminator, and others envision sentient, human-like robots that threaten to jeopardize the meaning of being human. But is that the real danger of AI, or does Read More ›

Lonely Human with water reflection, emotion, sadness loneliness, depression, mental health, fantasy painting, surreal illustration

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post

Peter Biles
Date
October 21, 2022

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
1984 (book), Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (book), C.S. Lewis, emotions, Featured, fiction, George Orwell, Roger Scruton, Science fiction}

Huxley’s Brave New World and the Hard Work of Sadness

_{A society centered on pleasure has no place for mourning, and so has no room for love} _{Peter Biles
October 21, 2022

5

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

Ninety years ago, Aldous Huxley published his prophetic and incisive Brave New World (1932), a dystopian novel that imagines a society of people intoxicated and controlled, not by state power, but by pleasure. Whereas George Orwell predicted an inevitable totalitarian world government in his novel 1984 (penned in 1949), Huxley proposed that human beings wouldn’t need to be coerced into submission but could be coaxed by the allure of pain-erasing drugs. Both nightmarish visions of the future have already somewhat played out today in American society. The government set up the Disinformation Governance Board in April of 2022, which sounds eerily like the “Ministry of Truth” in Orwell’s 1984. (The board has since disbanded.) Tech companies can track us more Read More ›

closeup of old handwriting; vintage paper background

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Peter Biles
Date
October 20, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Creativity and AI writing tools, fiction, Human exceptionalism, Language, poetry}

Shakespeare vs. AI: Who Wins?

_{AI fails to do justice to the full range and depth of human language} _{Peter Biles
October 20, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

I’ve written a fair bit in the last month on the development of AI art tools, but what about language? AI, as you’re probably aware, is not only able to mimic artistic styles. Its developers also want it to generate words, and to all appearances, they are succeeding. If visual artists are in trouble, how are journalists, novelists, and academics implicated in the AI revolution? I have a background in English, literature, and creative writing, so naturally, this AI issue hits a bit closer to home. Suppose an AI program could compose a short story with the prose quality and cohesive style of Ernest Hemingway. Could AI eventually produce news content, thus substituting the human reporter or journalist? As it Read More ›

“Fluorite” - oil painting. Conceptual abstract picture of the eye. Oil painting in colorful colors. Conceptual abstract closeup of an oil painting and palette knife on canvas.

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Peter Biles
Date
October 19, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Beauty, Creativity, Featured, Human exceptionalism, Machines}

Human Artists and their AI Copycats

_{What will happen to actual artists if AI can mimic their styles?} _{Peter Biles
October 19, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

Imagine you’re walking through a world-class art museum, and you come across Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” (Let’s assume someone hasn’t already thrown tomato soup on it.) The painting isn’t a replication. It’s not a copy of a copy of a copy. It’s the original canvas and paint, the direct object created by the artist himself, shaped by age, visited by thousands of admirers—it’s “vintage.” You stand there admiring the work of a past genius, and get a sense of its beauty and meaning in a whole new way. There’s something unique in witnessing “the real thing.” Why do people travel worldwide to look at Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” when they can see a digital recreation through a Google search? Or why Read More ›

Lord of the Rings Pop Art Poster Concept Art

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Peter Biles
Date
October 15, 2022

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Censorship}

Rings of Power: Is a Fascist Fandom Dragging It Down?

_{Lots of Tolkien fans dislike the new Amazon show. Does that make them fascists?} _{Peter Biles
October 15, 2022

5

Arts & Culture, Censorship}

Rings of Power has garnered harsh reviews since its release, and if you’ve been keeping up with my previous Rings of Power posts, you know where I stand: the show keeps me watching, but it’s a mixed bag. There are things to celebrate and aspects to critique. Many of the people I’ve talked to feel the same way. They enjoy the show but don’t think it compares to the grandeur of Peter Jackson’s interpretation of The Lord of the Rings, which at twenty years old, still stuns the ear and eye. Some media outlets, however, are accusing the disappointed fanbase of racism and misogyny. If you don’t like Rings of Power, it might mean you hate diversity and inclusion. Amazon Read More ›

NFT virtual land is an own-able area of digital land on a metaverse platform, NFT real estate is parcels of virtual land minted on the blockchain, conceptual illustration

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post

Peter Biles
Date
October 12, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Future, Mark Zuckerberg, Metaverse (living in metaverse), Reality, Robert J. Marks, Technology, Virtual Reality, Wesley J. Smith}

The Danger of Deepfakes (and Deepcake)

_{In a metaverse world dominated by AI, life and art is in danger of being eclipsed} _{Peter Biles
October 12, 2022

4

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other optimistic futurists think the metaverse is our collective future. We will exist in virtual nonexistence. We will eat, shop, worship, communicate, and marry in the metaverse. This is where progress is taking us. So, we’d best go along for the ride if we don’t want to get left behind. But “living” in a metaverse may be much more complicated than you might think. The question of identity, and who has the power to distribute identities at will, haunts the metaverse project, and there doesn’t seem to be an easy solution. In September, a Russian deepfake company called “Deepcake” (the name strangely makes me hungry for dessert) pasted the face of Bruce Willis on a Read More ›