Things Exist That Are Unknowable
A tutorial on Chaitin's numberThe mathematically provable idea that something exists but is unknowable has clear philosophical and theological implications.
Read More ›Robert J. Marks
Random Thoughts on Recent AI Headlines
There is usually a story under those layers of hype but not always the one you thoughtWhen Thomas Sowell was writing his syndicated column on economics, I always looked forward to his sporadically appearing “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene.” Reminding readers that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I offer my own “Random Thoughts on Recent AI Headlines.”
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STEM Education 8: Help Create Creativity
Creativity diminishes with age, in part because we dig ourselves into ruts that limit our field of view.An aging STEM nerd digs more and deeper ruts and creative thinking becomes more and more difficult. For this reason, I remain tolerant of graduate students with new and seemingly wacky ideas.
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STEM Education 7: Sell the Sizzle
The mathematics underlying our world is fascinating and full of surprisesIn my experience, true STEM nerds are always pursuing some type of sizzle even in their spare time. Generally, the higher the academic degree, the greater the freedom STEM nerds have to pursue their sizzle of choice.
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STEM Education 6: How to Guide a Nerd
Students whose high school curricula are flexible can more easily develop and follow their God-given talentsSTEM nerd parents and educators need four principles to identify nerds and bring them to a healthy and fulfilling maturity. We here present the first two: identification and nurture in the fundamentals of STEM disciplines
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Autonomous AI in War: Trial by Ordeal
The more complicated a system becomes, the more difficult it is to analyze all of its actions.There are plenty of roads on which to test and tune the self-driving cars, but there are not a lot of wars available in which to test and tune autonomous AI weapons. If we seek military superiority to deter aggression, imaginative and creative minds are needed to assess all possibilities.
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AI Ethics and the Value of Human Life
Unanticipated consequences will always be a problem for totally autonomous AIIn the development of technology overall, there is always a tradeoff in which human life is given a price. For example, cheap cars aren’t safe and safe cars aren’t cheap.
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STEM Education 5: What Difference Do Family and Privilege Make to Success?
A strong family helps a STEM nerd succeed. However, a “strong family” is not necessarily a family that had an easy ride, as my own story shows.The money my parents could make in the new urban environment was good, but it was a bad place to raise kids. In high school, I began to run with gangs and do many things I’m not proud of. Dad and Mom scraped together money for me to go to college instead.
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Why we can’t just ban killer robots
Should we develop them for military use? The answer isn’t pretty. It is yes.Autonomous AI weapons are potentially within the reach of terrorists, madmen, and hostile regimes like Iran and North Korea. As with nuclear warheads, we need autonomous AI to counteract possible enemy deployment while avoiding its use ourselves.
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STEM Education 4: Do STEM Nerds Need to Learn Latin?
Okay, not Latin. But some arts subjects do enhance a STEM careerWell-roundedness is appropriate in applied STEM curricula to the extent that it rounds out the skills necessary for success as a STEM professional.
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STEM EDUCATION 3. Killing People and Breaking Things
Modern history suggests that military superiority driven by technology can be a key factor in deterring aggression and preventing mass fatalities
The Idol with Feet of Silicon
Religions based on artificial intelligence (AI) cannot transcend the limits of computersThose proclaiming that exclusive truth lives totally in naturalism are constrained to a sadly narrow view of the world. Some naturalists have put their faith in AI and have founded the AI Church. They may think they are doing something new and cutting edge, but as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun (1:9).
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STEM EDUCATION 2. Not Everyone Is Lucky Enough to be a Nerd
How do you identify extroverted nerds? When you are talking to them, they look at YOUR shoes
STEM EDUCATION 1. Pursuing Nerd Quality Over Nerd Quantity
Reducing math and science to practice is what engineers do. Scientists didn’t put a man on the moon. Engineers did.
1: IBM’s Watson Is NOT Our New Computer Overlord
AI help, not hype: It won at Jeopardy (with specially chosen “softball” questions) but is not the hoped-for aid to cancer specialists
2: AI Can Write Novels and Screenplays Better than the Pros!
AI help, not hype: Software can automatically generate word sequences based on material fed in from existing scripts. But with what result?“AI rites reel gud!” Seriously, the idea is not new. Back in the 1940s, George Orwell (1903–1950) thought that a machine could write popular novels so long as no creative thinking was involved. Thus, in his 1984 police state world, one of the central characters has a job minding a machine that mass produces them. In the 1960s, some film experiments were done along these lines, using Westerns (cowboy stories). At the time, there were masses of formula-based film material to work with in this popular genre. But what does the product look and sound like? In 2016, Ars Technica was proud to sponsor “the first AI-written sci-fi script:” As explained in The Guardian, a recurrent neural network “was fed the Read More ›
3: With Mind-Reading AI, You Will Never Have Secrets Again!
AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Did you read about the flap they had to cut out of a volunteer’s skull?The Daily Mail is the United Kingdom’s second largest circulation daily. A headline from the webpage screams: No more secrets! New mind-reading machine can translate your thoughts and display them as text INSTANTLY! Not a lot of nuance there. The story continues on a tidal wave of hyperbole, • Researchers say they have developed a machine that can translate our thoughts • The astonishing machine will analyse what you are thinking and display it as text ending with a charitable hope: • Scientists hope that the machine can be used by people who are unable to speak The reality is that AI can read your mind for a few words repeated often if you have a flap cut out of your skull and Read More ›
4: Making AI Look More Human Makes It More Human-like!
AI help, not hype, with Robert J. Marks: Technicians can do a lot these days with automated lip-syncs and smiles but what’s behind them?
5: AI Can Fight Hate Speech!
AI can carry out its programmers’ biases and that’s all