Nobel Prize winner warns AI may outsmart humans, But wait…
It’s hard to rule out the possibility that the Nobel Committee figures that, even if it’s not really physics, if Hinton is right, they will have been prophetic.
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Politics: How information theory helps us avoid being manipulated
Dembski: Are the choices we are offered in a political situation all the ones that are really available? Sometimes, that’s not true.
Read More ›Business prof: Big data is making science worse, not better
As Gary Smith tells International Higher Education, it has automated common types of cheating. Reviewers may need to be paid to sort it out.
Read More ›Brazil X back on line — but the wider struggle is only beginning
ADF International reports that X is back online for its 40 million users in Brazil after a 39-day blockade — at least for now: Justice Alexandre De Moraes, who controversially banned the platform in August, has lifted the blockade following the conclusion of national elections. The stated objection of the ban was to prevent “misinformation” and “hate speech” ahead of Read More ›
Trend: Tech columnist leaves WaPo to start own mag
The key challenge is that essentially, the internet crashed the cost of two things: individual content creation AND censorship. Which will win?
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The opossum is not an animal who “understands death”!
Philosopher Susana Monsó admits that her thesis that opossums understand death is partly driven by her environment concerns — and her emotional needs.
Read More ›Lab leak theory was not just misinformation: British PM
Former British prime minister Boris Johnson, best known for taking Britain out of the European Union (Brexit), is releasing a memoir later this month. Unleashed (Collins 2024) offers an interesting item for the bulging “Misinformation” file about COVID. At The Spectator, “Cockburn” tells us, In 2021, Johnson was adamant that Covid was a result of “demented” traditional Chinese medical practices, Read More ›
How did the cat travel 900 miles from Wyoming to California?
Rayne Beau (“Rainbow”) got lost in Yellowstone National Park during a June camping trip. His human friends, Benny and Susanne Anguiano of Salinas, California, sadly returned home without him. But then In August, the Anguianos received amazing news when a microchip company messaged them that their cat was at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Roseville, Read More ›
Language experts: Three reasons AI doesn’t model human language
Last March, three language experts wrote a letter to top science journal Nature saying that the way chatbots (large language models or LLMs) are developed — while successful for the purpose — should not be confused with the way human language is commonly acquired: First, First, LLMs are probabilistic models of externalized language data, whereas human language is truly generative: Read More ›
How science is changing on the subject of consciousness
In 2023, dualist philosopher David Chalmers unexpectedly won an important 25-year science wager with Allen Institute neuroscientist Christof Koch. Chalmers took the view that no physical “consciousness spot” would be found in the brain by 2023 — and it wasn’t. Last month, Robert Lawrence Kuhn asked Chalmers at Closer to Truth, Kuhn: David, you are a great proponent of consciousness Read More ›
California law against political deepfakes results in — deepfakes
Responding to California’s new legislation forbidding deepfakes in political advertising, championed by governor Gavin Newsom — and promptly challenged by a parody writer — economist Robert Graboyes offers at his Substack, Bastiat’s Window, his own parodies … of Newsom: Apparently, a sizable number of California voters share a genetic trait stunting their capacity to recognize political satire and parody—a disability Read More ›