Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryArtificial Intelligence

cyborg-hand-holding-a-medical-icon-and-connection-3d-rendering-stockpack-adobe-stock
Cyborg hand holding a Medical icon and connection 3d rendering
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post
Author
Stephen Berger
Date
November 8, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health
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How Does AI Change My Healthcare?

And what if my most important problem is NOT medical?
Stephen Berger
November 8, 2021
6
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health

What is AI doing to me? That is a good question to contemplate. I want to focus on healthcare: How is my healthcare impacted by AI? In ways that are both obvious and obtuse, AI is changing healthcare. As it changes healthcare, AI is changing us! All of our lives are increasingly quantified. We have devices to count our steps, monitor our pulse and even track how much water we drink. During my last visit, my dentist recommended that I get an Oral-B iO Electric Toothbrush. He was pretty enthusiastic about it and so I got one. This toothbrush not only has a Bluetooth connection to an app you can download onto your phone, but it uses artificial intelligence! Wow! Read More ›

extraterrestrial-aliens-spaceship-fly-above-small-town-ufo-with-blue-spotlights-in-dark-stormy-sky-stockpack-adobe-stock
Extraterrestrial aliens spaceship fly above small town, ufo with blue spotlights in dark stormy sky.
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post
Author
News
Date
November 6, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Military, Science
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Elon Musk Keeps Buzz About Extraterrestrials in the News

He has said that we may be ET’s sims. Then this year he created an uproar by doubting UFOs — and another one months later by implying that they do exist. Huh?
News
November 6, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Military, Science

Self-driving car and private space travel entrepreneur Elon Musk has been all over the map recently as far as ET is concerned. He has claimed that our universe may have been simulated by extraterrestrials. He has hinted that he himself is an extraterrestrial. Earlier this year, he apparently reversed course and identified (on Twitter) the strongest argument for the idea that ET doesn’t even exist: ‘Strongest argument against aliens,’ Musk tweeted, along with two charts that shows camera resolution has advanced, but UFO pictures have remained the same. The post concludes that extraterrestrials do not exist, due to most images showing floating blobs, but many of the comments argue otherwise. One user responded with ‘that’s exactly what an alien would Read More ›

the-alien-is-studying-the-data-set-about-the-man-stockpack-adobe-stock
The alien is studying the data set about the man.
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post
Author
News
Date
November 6, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity
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Astronomer: ET Is More Likely To Be AI Than To Be a Life Form

Royal astronomer Lord Martin Rees explains that, apart from other issues, AI would last much longer in the hostile galactic environment
News
November 6, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity

Prominent British Royal Society astronomer Lord Martin Rees thinks that ET will turn out to be AI: Human technological civilisation only dates back millennia (at most) – and it may be only one or two more centuries before humans, made up of organic materials such as carbon, are overtaken or transcended by inorganic intelligence, such as AI. Computer processing power is already increasing exponentially, meaning AI in the future may be able to use vastly more data than it does today. It seems to follow that it could then get exponentially smarter, surpassing human general intelligence. Perhaps a starting point would be to enhance ourselves with genetic modification in combination with technology – creating cyborgs with partly organic and partly Read More ›

big letters
BIG letters inside a London store
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post
Author
News
Date
November 5, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity
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Does Creativity Just Mean Bigger Data? Or Something Else?

Michael Egnor and Robert J. Marks look at claims that artificial intelligence can somehow be taught to be creative
News
November 5, 2021
14
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity

In Define information before you talk about it, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviewed engineering prof Robert J. Marks on the way information, not matter, shapes our world (October 28, 2021). In the first portion, Egnor and Marks discussed questions like: Why do two identical snowflakes seem more meaningful than one snowflake? Now they turn to the relationship between information and creativity. Is creativity a function of more information? Or is there more to it? This portion begins at 10:46 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Michael Egnor: How does biological information differ from information in nonliving things? Robert J. Marks: I don’t know if it does… I do believe after recent study that the mind Read More ›

female-humpback-whale-with-calf-stockpack-adobe-stock
Female humpback whale with calf
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 5, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Can AI Help Us Talk to Whales? Maybe. But Then What?

In the real world, if we succeed in communicating with whales, it will be much like communicating successfully with dogs, cats, and horses. None of them are furry people.
Denyse O'Leary
November 5, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

A recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine holds out the hope that AI can help enable us to talk with whales: The clicks of sperm whales are ideal candidates for attempting to decode their meanings—not just because, unlike continuous sounds that other whale species produce, they are easy to translate into ones and zeros. The animals dive down into the deepest ocean depths and communicate over great distances, so they cannot use body language and facial expressions, which are important means of communication for other animals. “It is realistic to assume that whale communication is primarily acoustic,” says Bronstein. Sperm whales have the largest brains in the animal kingdom, six times the size of ours. When two of these animals Read More ›

sci-fi-scene-of-the-creature-machine-invading-city-digital-art-style-illustration-painting-stockpack-adobe-stock
sci-fi scene of the creature machine invading city, digital art style, illustration painting
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post
Author
News
Date
October 30, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Relationships
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Worst Case: AI Robots Invade to “Help” Us — Sci-fi Saturday

A well-meaning AI attempts to “rescue” an impressionable child from the coming wipeout of humanity
News
October 30, 2021
22
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Relationships

“Cera” (2021 ) at DUST by John Robinson Irwin (October 20, 2021, 7:33 min) An 11-year old girl’s loyalty to her parents is tested after an attack by her caregiver hints to a greater violent upheaval beyond their rural surroundings. Review: The story opens with Hailey (Cali DiCapo)and her father John (Jason Isaacs) finding her mother Maria (Maria-Elena Laas) stabbed, though not dead. Minimal dialogue does a good job at filling us in on an, at first, nameless horror without breaking the suspense. Thus, we sense that “Cera” is an intelligent caregiver but not a human being and that the child’s devotion to her could be fatal or… It gets creepier from there. Minimal spoilers but it’s not clear, in Read More ›

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Competition between humans and robots in tug of war concept
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post
Author
News
Date
October 29, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Work
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Robots Will NOT Steal Our Jobs, Business Analysts Show

Doomsayers typically do not factor in all components of the job that a robot would have to replace or all of the true costs of trying, they say
News
October 29, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Work

At Fast Company, data analyst Jeffrey Funk and business prof Gary N. Smith dispute the claim that robots are coming for all our jobs. They point to a history of overblown claims: In 1965, Herbert Simon, who would later be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics and the Turing Award (the “Nobel Prize of computing”), predicted that “machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do.” In 1970, Marvin Minsky, who also received the Turing Award, predicted that, “in from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being.” The implications for jobs were ominous, but robotic-takeover predictions have been in the air for a Read More ›

silicon-valley-traffic-sign-stockpack-adobe-stock
silicon valley traffic sign
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post
Author
News
Date
October 26, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Events
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George Gilder Asks Silicon Valley Again: What’s It All About?

As the author of Wealth and Poverty (1981), Gilder hopes to challenge both the boosters and the doomsayers on why we are doing high tech
News
October 26, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Events

If you make it to COSM 2021 (November 10–12, Bellevue, Washington), you won’t want to miss George Gilder, the tech philosopher whose approach to technology is COSM’s inspiration: We do technology if it helps us, not just because it helps Silicon Valley. His bestseller, Wealth and Poverty (Basic Books, 1981) probed basic questions like why we work and how we decide something has value. His Life after Google (2018) looks at what we can do with sophisticated tech when Silicon Valley no longer micromanages everything. At COSM 2019, Gilder asked Big Tech pioneers, movers, and shakers, where all this is going. What is the value? He got some good answers on, for example, the real life prospects and limits of Read More ›

unicorn-stockpack-adobe-stock
unicorn
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post
Author
News
Date
October 25, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics
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Tech Stocks: Are the Unicorns Losing Their Horns? Their Magic?

Jeffrey Lee Funk and Gary N. Smith reveal at MarketWatch that widely publicized, iconic unicorns have never made money or made only a little
News
October 25, 2021
2
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Technology consultant Jeffrey Lee Funk and Pomona business prof Gary N. Smith are not exactly bullish on the new high tech-dependent startups (unicorns) that everybody talks about. Lots of media interest and commentating, sure, but where’s the money? In a recent op-ed at MarketWatch, Funk and Smith warn, “Unicorn losses are unprecedented in the history of U.S. startups and threaten stock markets and the economy.” Not what you heard? Think about this then: The authors, regular contributors at Mind Matters News, point out that many investors and analysts worry about China’s Evergrande Group’s current woes ($300 billion in liabilities). But Evergrand was once profitable. And the Ubers and Airbnbs? They’ve never been profitable and the liabilities are growing: Unicorn losses Read More ›

japanese-red-maple-keys-in-our-own-backyard-these-are-beautiful-signs-of-spring-stockpack-unsplash
Japanese red maple keys in our own backyard. These are beautiful signs of spring.
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post
Author
News
Date
October 25, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Environment, Surveillance
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Could Tiny Flying Computer Chips Monitor the World? They’re here!

A team at Northwestern University has developed a model based on the design of seed dispersal in nature
News
October 25, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Environment, Surveillance

A Northwestern University team is developing electronic chips as small as a grain of sand, equipped with wings like those of wind-dispersed seeds. The hope is that these microfliers will monitor pollution and contamination — and surveil crowds via ultra-miniaturized equipment: About the size of a grain of sand, the new flying microchip (or “microflier”) does not have a motor or engine. Instead, it catches flight on the wind — much like a maple tree’s propeller seed — and spins like a helicopter through the air toward the ground. By studying maple trees and other types of wind-dispersed seeds, the engineers optimized the microflier’s aerodynamics to ensure that it — when dropped at a high elevation — falls at a Read More ›

robot-ai-artificial-intelligence-is-learning-creativity-stockpack-adobe-stock
robot ai artificial intelligence is learning creativity
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post
Author
News
Date
October 23, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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AI Tries Creativity! … by Kidnapping Newborns — Sci-fi Saturday

But the AIs seeking world dominance kidnap the wrong child
News
October 23, 2021
23
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

“The Shift” (2021) at DUST by Johan Samuelsson (July 8, 2021, 7:10 min) Many years ago tech giants lost control of AI robotic technology. By kidnapping and monitoring newborns, the Ai robots are now trying to master the one thing they have yet to understand – Creativity. The Shift is about creativity, and the things that separate humans from robots. The idea for “The Shift” grew from the development of new Artificial Intelligence (AI) focused technology that simplify, and replace humans tasks and jobs. As a motion designer I experience this constantly in updated softwares, and countless of plug-ins that simplify daily tasks. For example some crafts that took several hours to complete by hand a couple of years ago, Read More ›

.Businessman holding tablet and management group of people in his hand. Virtual icon of social network. Business technology concept.
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post
Author
Richard W. Stevens
Date
October 21, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics
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Asilomar AI Principles: Ethics to Guide a Top-Down Control Regime

Experts agree on a humanistic AI ethics program! Before we break out the champagne, let's ask some serious questions about their assumptions.
Richard W. Stevens
October 21, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics

Get 1,200 artificial intelligence (AI) researchers and 2,500 other businesspeople and academics, such as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Ray Kurzweil, and David Chalmers, to all endorse one document about AI ethics. Voila! You have the Asilomar AI Principles with serious sound bite power: Experts agree on a humanistic AI ethics program! Do the Principles advance a worthy cause? To a certain extent, perhaps, in theory. Reading the text of the Asilomar Principles, however, you get a few vague ethical aspirations offered to guide a top-down control regime. Surveying the Principles’ 23 points, a few stand out as smooth, velvet glove power-grabbers. The points do it subtly, so as the holographic Dr. Lanning advised in I, Robot (2004), “you have to ask the right questions.”  At least one useful thing a 30-year litigation Read More ›

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Big data analytics through machine learning, Artificial Intelligence concept background, Using deep learning algorithms for neural network data analysis, Abstract AI 3d illustration
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post
Author
News
Date
October 20, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Environment
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Researchers: Is the Cost of Improving Deep Learning Sustainable?

At IEEE: System designers may have to go back to relying on experts again to tell them what matters, rather than on massive databases
News
October 20, 2021
6
Artificial Intelligence, Environment

Deep Learning is an approach to computer programming that attempts to mimic the human brain (artificial neural networks) so as to enable systems to cluster data and make accurate predictions (IBM). It’s the dominant AI system today, used to predict how proteins fold and analyse medical scans as well as to beat humans at Go. And yet, four Deep Learning researchers recently wrote in IEEE Spectrum that “The cost of improvement is becoming unsustainable.” As part of their special report, “The Great AI Reckoning,”they explain: While deep learning’s rise may have been meteoric, its future may be bumpy. Like Rosenblatt before them, today’s deep-learning researchers are nearing the frontier of what their tools can achieve. To understand why this will Read More ›

army-of-artificial-workers-stockpack-adobe-stock
army of artificial workers
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post
Author
News
Date
October 18, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Technocracy
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Peter Thiel: Big Tech, As It Operates Today, Is Communist

Visions of the computer age have swung from big centralization in 1969 through big decentralization in 1999. Neither got it quite right, Thiel says
News
October 18, 2021
8
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Technocracy

Philosopher of technology George Gilder revisits world class tech venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s live streamed talk at COSM 2019 in “ The failures and self-hatred of Big Tech.” Thiel, the author of Zero to One (2014) will attend COSM 2021 (November 10–12) in person this time, along with Gilder. Note: You can get the best rate if you register before October 31. The focus of the 2021 meet will be the paradoxes of the new world of technology. As we will see, Thiel is an expert at defining that world. This is the first of a four-part series on his view of the future, starting with his First Contrarian Idea, that the way Big Tech operates today is communist and Read More ›

surprised-african-american-man-in-denim-jacket-looks-at-receipt-total-in-sales-check-holding-paper-bag-with-products-in-mall-stockpack-adobe-stock
Surprised African-American man in denim jacket looks at receipt total in sales check holding paper bag with products in mall
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post
Author
News
Date
October 18, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics
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A Market Analyst Explains Why You Should Take Inflation Seriously

Bernard Fickser looks at the tech companies that are worth astonishing amounts, unrelated to their current product lines
News
October 18, 2021
9
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Readers may remember Bernard Fickser from his series on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and how they can be made to work better. Now he looks at a more serious problem, the current (quiet) capitalization crisis: the growth in the perceived market value (market caps) of tech companies, far beyond the market value of any assets they have. He recalls the famous (and costly) Dot.com Bubble (1995–2000), when “tech and internet companies that had no actual products or prototypes or detailed plans for products were receiving enormous valuations simply on a promise and a prayer.” Many prayers went unheard and small investors suffered huge losses. Business prof Gary Smith highlights Bill’s Barber Shop in 2000, where locals had reckoned on secure prosperity Read More ›

creative-ideaconcept-of-idea-and-innovation-stockpack-adobe-stock
creative idea.Concept of idea and innovation
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post
Author
News
Date
October 14, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Events, Philosophy
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Meet Your Host for COSM 2021, Steve Buri

Buri, President of the Discovery Institute, has been active in Washington public life for decades and looks forward to hosting thoughtful high tech pioneers
News
October 14, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Events, Philosophy

Attendees of COSM 2021 (November 10–11), where Big Tech pioneers will sit down together to think and talk about where AI is going, will have as their hos, Steve Buri. Buri, President of the Discovery Institute since 2011, will be emceeing and moderating throughout, with the goal of sharing the mission of Discovery Institute as it relates to an understanding of natural and artificial intelligence. A couple of things about Steve: He was born and raised in the small farming community ofColfax, Washington, and graduated from Washington State University with a double major in political science and criminal justice in 1994. After graduation, he was active in local politics, serving as senior staff member to U.S. Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) Read More ›

cute-handmade-reborn-baby-doll-stockpack-adobe-stock
Cute handmade reborn baby doll
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post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
October 12, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Relationships
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Is GPT-3 the “Reborn Doll” of Artificial Intelligence?

Unlike the reality doll collectors, GPT-3 engineers truly believe that scaling up the model size will suddenly cause GPT-3 to think and talk like a real human
Eric Holloway
October 12, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Relationships

There is a worldwide community that collects “reborn dolls.” These dolls look almost like real babies. Look again, closely, at the featured photo above… They help some collectors cope with the loss of a child. For others, it fulfills their sense of self image. And yet others just see them as a quirky hobby. Regardless of how much the baby dolls mimic the appearance of real dolls, the dolls will forever remain copies because the external appearances are not generated by biological processes. For the collectors, this is a feature, not a bug. They enjoy the appearance of a baby without the real life difficulties of raising a real person. As one collector comments, her doll “doesn’t turn into a Read More ›

insight-stockpack-adobe-stock
Insight
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post
Author
News
Date
October 7, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Great Ideas Can Come From the “Quirks” of Human Intelligence

Artificial intelligence, lacking those quirks, doesn’t generate the great ideas
News
October 7, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Herbert L. Roitblat, Principal Data Scientist at Mimecast and author of Algorithms Are Not Enough: Creating General Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press, 2020) talks about something that humans do and machine intelligence doesn’t do — flashes of insight: Insight problems generally cannot be solved by a step-by-step procedure, like an algorithm, or if they can, the process is extremely tedious. Instead, insight problems are characterized by a kind of restructuring of the solver’s approach to the problem. Herbert L. Roitblat, “AI Is No Match for the Quirks of Human Intelligence” at The Reader/MIT Press (October 4, 2021) Eureka! moments of discovery — famous in popular culture — are often the resolution of an insight problem. Roitblat offers, as an example, a Read More ›

game-of-chess-stockpack-adobe-stock
Game of chess
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post
Author
Richard W. Stevens
Date
October 7, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Economics
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Why AI Cannot Successfully Run the Economy

Artificial intelligence is insufficient to predict and plan for the vast complexities of an individual human being, let alone an entire country
Richard W. Stevens
October 7, 2021
8
Artificial Intelligence, Economics

Optimists talk about artificial intelligence (AI) as magnificent tools and ultimately a source of world salvation. Pessimists warn that AI can produce the implements of tyranny and ultimately soulless world domination. Many people in both camps take these views without seriously questioning the limits of AI.  To challenge the optimists: Can AI run a human society’s economy better than humans? Governments are expanding and taking more power to run everything, and many people accept or even cheer them for doing so. To carry out that mission, such Leviathan governments invariably increase taxes and impose regulations upon economic activity: prices, wages, investments, interest rates, use of private property, transfers of ownership, and permissible or forbidden transactions.    Leviathan’s cheerleaders don’t explain how all-powerful governments claiming to run national economies can actually succeed. Read More ›

influencer-marketing-concept-of-information-and-influence-propagation-in-social-networks-stockpack-adobe-stock
Influencer Marketing, Concept of Information and Influence Propagation in Social Networks
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post
Author
News
Date
October 5, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Social Media
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Erik Larson To Speak at COSM 2021, Puncturing AI Myths

A programmer himself, he is honest about what AI can and can’t do
News
October 5, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Social Media

If you’ve ever got the sense that we are all being played by the people marketing “Soon AI will think just like you or me!”, you may want to catch Erik J. Larson’s talk at COSM 2021 (November 10–12). Larson, author of The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (Harvard University Press, 2021), is a computer scientist and tech entrepreneur. The founder of two DARPA-funded AI startups, we are told that he is currently working on core issues in natural language processing and machine learning. He has written for The Atlantic and for professional journals and has tested the technical boundaries of artificial intelligence through his work with the IC2 tech incubator at the Read More ›