Monday Micro Softy 9: To Flip or Not to Flip?
Probability theory can sometimes help with seemingly impossible questions. But how?About the answer to Micro Softy #8, ask yourself a question, “Who shaves the barber?”
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Robert J. Marks
Monday Micro Softy 8: Who’s the Better Barber?
There are only two barbers to choose from and the choice may not be as easy as it looks. Also, here's the answer to Who's the Champ?Micro Softy 7 is an illustration of Simpson’s Paradox, which says that averaging averages doesn’t always work.
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Monday Micro Softy 7: Who’s the Champ?
A single number does not always determine which player is betterAnd here’s the answer to why young Clay’s arithmetic didn’t make sense at first to Claude — but then Claude realized that the boy was right.
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Only in America
My discussion on this week’s podcast with Major General Bobby Hollingsworth (ret.) prompts a look at some of the many people that America has freed to be their bestDespite our different faiths, my Muslim colleague Mohamed El-Sharkawi was a steadfast ally and when his mosque was defaced post 9-11, Christians protected it.
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Monday Micro Softy 6: Bad Adding?
It looked to Claude like young Clay’s numbers didn’t add up but he seemed confident. What did he know that his father at first didn’t?And here’s the answer to the probability question: What are the chances that Claude and Chloe’s younger child is also a boy?
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The Man Behind the First Billion-Dollar AI Business
Robert Hecht-Nielsen (1947‒2019) was a significant figure in the second wave of AI. His company specialized in fraud detectionHe led a full life marked by remarkable achievements but he also had a near-death experience that transformed him spiritually.
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Micro Softy 5: The Puzzle of Claude and Chloe’s Two Kids
Also, here’s the answer to the puzzle of how, twelve years earlier, Claude escaped the trap Clifton Clowers set for him, so he could marry ChloePuzzle: We learn that one of Claude and Chloe’s two children is a boy. With a 50–50 ratio, what chance is there that the other child is a boy too?
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Monday Micro Softy 4: Claude King Bests Clifton Clowers
Clowers offers Claude two slips of paper to choose from on a blind choice: marriage or death...Claude’s sweetheart Chloe warns him that, in reality, both slips say “death.” He says never mind. So how did he escape death and marry her?
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Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Law of Forbidden Fruit
Where minors are concerned, restrict and talk — but don’t banOutright banning alone does not work and will not have the outcome its Aussie supporters believe it will. Give kids reasons for limits and rules.
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Monday Micro Softy 3: The Wolverton Mountain Puzzle
Here’s the answer to Dead President’s Club as well — and smart STEM people often DON'T get that one rightMind Matters News is pleased to offer a new series, “Monday Micro Softies,” from our director, Robert J. Marks, a series of puzzles that illustrate the ways of thinking needed in the computer industry today. – Eds. Here’s today’s puzzle, in honor of Claude King, followed by the solution to last Monday’s puzzle, The Dead Presidents Club. In 1962, King recorded the song Wolverton Mountain. It’s the story of Claude’s love of Clifton Clowers’ daughter — we’ll call her Chloe — who lives on the top of Wolverton Mountain. (Listen here.) It’s a catchy tune. Here’s a puzzle augmenting the song’s story: Claude starts climbing to the top of Wolverton Mountain at 6 AM. There is only one road, and Read More ›
Monday Micro Softy 2: The Dead Presidents’ Club
The answer to Monday Micro Softy 1: The Round Trip is here tooToday’s puzzle: How would a girl who knew nothing of American history immediately know the name of at least one of three early Presidents who died on July 4?
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Microsoft: What Did You Need To Work There in the Early Days?
They asked questions that were not about the details of computer technology. The questions made you think. Hard.For example. they would ask questions like, why are manhole covers round?
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Chegged Out: How ChatGPT Schooled a Study Giant
AI has transformed how students approach both learning and cheatingAI is going to both create and destroy businesses. An interesting victim of AI is the academic assistance business. Academic dishonesty, the dark side of academic assistance, is a fancy term for cheating. With profit-motivated websites like Chegg.com, cheating became easier. When taking an exam, a student could take a photo of a difficult problem and send it to Chegg. In literally minutes, the student would be sent the answer over a cell phone. How do they do it? Often Chegg employs smart nerds from poor countries who, by local standards, are paid big bucks for their efforts. To use Chegg, a subscription is needed. But why include a human in the loop when AI can give you a quicker Read More ›
Are We Now Giving Nobel Prizes to Cheerleaders?
Even though both John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton are brilliant researchers, there were much more obviously deserving recipientsI still find it hard to see the connection between physics and neural networks but if it’s there, Paul Werbos and Bernie Widrow should have won the Nobel Prize.
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Jason Allen’s Battle With AI Copyright Law
There is no doubt that this commitment warrants a copyright. Allen used Midjourney as a tool and not as the source of his creativity.The only solution I can see to the AI copyright problem is to verify that numerous highly detailed prompts were used to create an image.
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Harris vs. Trump? Why Not an AI for President Instead?
A writer at the business magazine Forbes seriously considers that option. But look before you leap…It would be a disastrous idea because sometimes creative decision-making is critical, but AI is and will remain clueless about that.
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Can Free Will and Predestination Both Be True?
Seemingly contradictory arguments can sometimes be resolved from a higher level perspective. Quantum mechanics vs. classical physics provides an illustrationThe conflict between free will and predestination disappears when considering the perspective of the almighty “I Am” vs. our human perspective.
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High Tech Wizards Are Trying To Create a God in Their Own Image
Some AI industry figures believe in the coming of the Singularity, wherein machines duplicate and then exceed the abilities of manThere is no convincing evidence that computers will ever experience creativity, understanding, and sentience. These are human attributes that can’t be computed.
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Marvin Minsky Asks: Can GPT4 Hack Itself?
Will AI of the future be able to count the number of objects in an image?Creativity and understanding, properly defined, lie beyond the capability of the computers of today and tomorrow.
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AI and Common Sense
Large Language Models and paraprosdokian one-linersAn LLM will never write a joke that gives another LLM a good honest belly laugh.
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