^CategoryArtificial Intelligence

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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Author
News
Date
October 18, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Automotive industry (market caps), Bernard Fickser, Big Tech (market caps), Capitalization crisis (Fickser's view), Dotcom Bubble, Elon Musk, Featured, Gary Smith (on Dotcom Bubble), Hyperinflation (Germany post WWI), Inflation (and Big Tech market caps), Inflation (and middle class), Jack Dorsey (Square), Jonathan Bartlett (on Tesla and media), Middle class (and inflation), Square (market cap), Tesla (market cap)}

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 idea.Concept of idea and innovation

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Author
News
Date
October 14, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Events, Philosophy

Tagged
COSM 2021, Discovery Institute (mission), Featured, Steve Buri, Steve Buri (COSM 2021 host), Steve Buri (on COVID-19), Stewardship Partners}

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 ›

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Author
Eric Holloway
Date
October 12, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Relationships

Tagged
Featured, GPT-3 (and human language learning), GPT-3 (scale question), Language learning, Reborn dolls}

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 ›

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Author
News
Date
October 7, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Algorithms Are Not Enough (book), Archimedes (and crown problem), Eureka! moments, Herbert L. Roitblat, Insight (as a form of thought)}

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 ›

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Author
Richard W. Stevens
Date
October 7, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Economics

Tagged
AlphaZero, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Blue, Gaming AI (book), Garry Kasparov, George Gilder, Joshua Sokol, Ludwig von Mises, Tyranny}

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 ›

Smart cars with automatic sensor driving on metropolis with wireless connection

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Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
October 4, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Autonomous Vehicles, DeNA, Easy Ride, Levels of autonomy (self-driving cars), Nissan, NTT DoCoMo, self-driving cars, William Dembski}

Nissan Develops Autonomous Taxi Service in Japan

_{Nissan recently chose to advance their pursuit of an autonomous vehicle by developing a taxi service to work in limited locations} _{Jonathan Bartlett

October 4, 2021

4

Artificial Intelligence}

One of the quieter players in the development of autonomous technology over the last decade has been Nissan. They originally announced the development of their autonomous technology in 2013, claiming that it would be fully ready to bring to market by 2020. While Nissan had a more realistic timeline than other companies touting autonomous development, it fell prey to the same failure to realize the actual complications that are inherent in truly autonomous scenarios. A graphic developed by Nissan in 2017 (shown below) shows the naïveté that was rampant during that time period. Nissan imagined that there were four stages to the development of autonomous vehicles— (1) single-lane highway, (2) multi-lane highway, (3) city driving, and then (4) full autonomy. The problem, as we have noted Read More ›

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Author
News
Date
October 3, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Science

Tagged
Elon Musk, Extraterrestrials (simulating our universe), Featured, Nick Bostrom, Ola Hössjer, Robert J. Marks, Simulation hypothesis}

Could Advanced Aliens Have Fine-Tuned Earth for Life?

_{That’s a surprisingly popular thesis, considering how hard it is to account for life without assuming a creator} _{News

October 3, 2021

10

Artificial Intelligence, Science}

Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks has been doing a series of podcasts with Swedish mathematician Ola Hössjer, and Colombian biostatistician Daniel Díaz in connection with a recent co-authored paper on the fine-tuning of the universe for life in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. In the first portion of this episode, podcast 153, “Why is there fine-tuning everywhere?” they looked at whether fine tuning of the universe for life can be accounted for by the theory that advanced life forms seeded life throughout the universe (directed panspermia). Surprisingly, perhaps, the theory is considered at least plausible, due to the difficulty of accounting for the existence of life otherwise. As Marks and his guests noted, great scientists such Read More ›

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Author
News
Date
October 2, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
5-minutes, Jonathan Irwin, Robert (film), Robots (as characters), Sci-Fi Saturday, Science fiction}

The Robot Waits for the Humans’ Return — Sci-fi Saturday

_{“Robert” is a household robot who has little to do but prowl the house while the humans are away} _{News

October 2, 2021

20

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

“Robert ” (2019) by Jonathan Irwin (uploaded at DUST September 27, 2021, 3:25 min) A glimpse into the future of our technological friends: The ROB 9000, waits for his family. Focusing on the robot’s self-awareness, loneliness and dog-like love of his owners, the film evokes sympathy for this humble hunk of metal. Review: This is more of a musical meditation with animations than a story. The only significant character in the film is Robert, a robot the size of a robotic vacuum cleaner but with an upright shape. Because there are no human characters (except, toward the end), viewers can accept that Robert is something of a dog who misses his folks. And all the worse for him, unlike a Read More ›

Downton Bellevue, Washington with Mt. Rainier

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Author
Caitlin Cory
Date
October 1, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Events

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, COSM 2021, Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft, Skype for Business, speech recognition software}

Meet Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft Executive and COSM 2021 Speaker

_{Pall has flourished as a developer and a leader in the world of artificial intelligence and speech recognition} _{Caitlin Cory

October 1, 2021

3

Artificial Intelligence, Events}

“I believe the world is ready for autonomous systems,” says Gurdeep Singh Pall, a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. Pall will be joining the impressive lineup of speakers at COSM 2021 this November. Pall has been with Microsoft since 1990 – a long and fruitful thirty-one years in which he rose from a software design engineer to the Corporate VP for the Information Platform and Experience team. In that time, he has worked on several noteworthy projects, including Windows NT 3.1, Windows XP, Skype for Business (now Teams), and many others. Pall was born in Chandigarh, India. In later adolescence, he considered following in his Brigadier father’s footsteps by joining the Indian army. “There was something inside me that kept Read More ›

young man working freelance in laptop at home

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Author
News
Date
September 29, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Neuroscience

Tagged
Aadeel Akhtar, Amputees, Bionic hands, Bionic prostheses (affordability), Polsky Center, Psyonic, Six Million Dollar Man (TV series)}

The Bionic Man Was Science Fiction; the Bionic Hand Is Not

_{A recent internet-savvy bionic hand, developed by an American neuroscientist and computer engineer, is the most flexible yet, with sensory feedback} _{News

September 29, 2021

5

Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Neuroscience}

Many people associate bionics with a 70s sci-fi TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man (“After a severely injured test pilot is rebuilt with nuclear-powered bionic limbs and implants, he serves as an intelligence agent”). It’s not science fiction any more: According to the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago, roughly 100,000 Americans — and 10 million people worldwide — are missing a hand. The award-winning Ability hand shown in the video, made by Psyonic, a Champaign, Illinois-based startup, is a useful illustration of how far prosthetics has come via electronic and internet technology. Representative of a new generation of prostheses, it is both electronics and internet-friendly: It charges in roughly an hour and the Read More ›

T-shirt made in Bangladesh. Customer looking at the origin and import country of a cheap fashion product in clothes store or shop. Ethical consumer behavior. Woman holding label and price tag with tex

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Author
News
Date
September 28, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Work

Tagged
Automation, Garment industry, Harris Quinn, Job loss (due to automation), Palaniswamy Rajan, Sewbots, SoftWear Automation, Sweatshops, T-shirts}

What Do Robots Find Hard? Sewing a T-shirt, For One Thing

_{Humans automatically and constantly adjust hand movements to the ever-changing alignment of cloth. Robots just freeze} _{News

September 28, 2021

3

Artificial Intelligence, Work}

Menswear entrepreneur Harris Quinn wrote a thoughtful piece at Wired recently on the mixed success of efforts to automate sewing via Sewbots, for example, developed by SoftWear Automation CEO Palaniswamy Rajan: One reason that sewing lends itself so well to the grinding labor of sweatshops is that it is very difficult to automate. That’s because cloth is pliable and constantly moving. The Sewbots face unexpected hurdles: But no two batches of cotton are exactly alike, often varying from harvest to harvest; variations in the fabric and dyes further complicate matters. Each variation can necessitate recalibrating the system, interrupting operations, and SoftWear has to train its machinery to respond accordingly. “The biggest challenge we have faced getting to a production system Read More ›

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Author
Eric Holloway
Date
September 27, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Eric Holloway, Killer robots, Lovelace test, Rice's theorem, Terminator, Terminator test, Turing Machine, Turing Test}

Move Over Turing and Lovelace – We Need a Terminator Test

_{More research should be spent on a Terminator test to mitigate the threat of an unfriendly, all-powerful artificial intelligence} _{Eric Holloway

September 27, 2021

4

Artificial Intelligence}

What we really need is not a Turing test or a Lovelace test, but a Terminator test. Just imagine. If we create an all-powerful artificial intelligence, we cannot assume it will be friendly. We cannot guarantee anything about the AI’s behavior due to something known as Rice’s theorem. Rice’s theorem states that all non-trivial semantic properties of programs are undecidable. Benevolence is certainly a non-trivial semantic property of programs, which means we cannot guarantee benevolent AIs. Therefore, what we really need is a way to distinguish the all-powerful artificial intelligence from human intelligence, so we can protect ourselves from humanized mass murdering robots. Let us think about this in terms of test errors. When we perform a test on some Read More ›

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Author
News
Date
September 25, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Gwyneth Keyworth, Harry Jackson, Julia Deakin, Lifeline (film), Nathan Bryon, Science fiction, Tom Abbosh}

Layers of Deceit Plague a High-Tech Call Center – Sci-Fi Saturday

_{Locked in, Jess must try to save a competitor’s life when she can only contact artificial intelligence choices that are not programmed to provide the needed assistance} _{News

September 25, 2021

20

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

“Lifeline” (2018) at DUST by Harry Jackson (At DUST September 6, 2021, 7:57 min) Jess, and her trial for a job at a high-tech call centre. When her competitor suddenly collapses, her only means to save him is a state of the art computer system. The problem is, the art is in a terrible state. Review: Jess (Gwyneth Keyworth) and Keith (Nathan Bryon) are competing for a job at the futuristic (and dominant) call center Ulternative Solutions. The iconic “room” where the company started — and they are locked into while trying out — is dusty. And Keith, it turns out, has asthma… Julia Deakin, as the witchlike supervisor, apprises the competitors of the company’s “ruthless sales ethic” “cherry picking Read More ›

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Author
News
Date
September 24, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics

Tagged
ai-limits, Charles Q. Choi}

Sure, AI Could Run the World — Except for Its Fundamental Limits

_{But many of the basic errors, problems, and limitations have no easy solution} _{News

September 24, 2021

4

Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics}

We are told that not only will AI take our jobs but it will take our bosses’ jobs and their bosses’ jobs and pretty soon., AI will be running the world… We can see those films on Netflix any night. Science writer and science fiction author Charles Q. Choi offers, in a longish piece at the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers’ online magazine, Spectrum, talking about the real world where “Neural networks can be disastrously brittle, forgetful, and surprisingly bad at math.” AI frequently flubs and it is not clear how to make it flub less. Here are brief notes on three examples of the seven he offers: ➤“Brittle” 97% of AIs could not identify a school bus flipped Read More ›

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Author
Stephen Berger
Date
September 22, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
advanced computing techniques, Artificial Intelligence, distributed systems, Risk management, spectrum, use cases, Wireless}

The Changing Relationship Between AI and Wireless

_{AI and wireless are combining to create surprising possibilities} _{Stephen Berger

September 22, 2021

7

Artificial Intelligence}

Advanced computing techniques, often given the summary label of artificial intelligence (AI), and the latest generations of wireless protocols are combining to create new and exciting possibilities. Early generations of wireless connectivity were pursued to enable mobility and eliminate cables. From 1G’s introduction of analog voice mobile telephony, each generation of mobile communications has brought fundamentally new and different innovations. The full impact of these capabilities has typically been unappreciated. That pattern appears to be repeating itself. The potential impact of technological innovations takes time to reveal itself. It tends to surprise all but a few visionary individuals. In previous wireless generations wireless devices were typically stand-alone generators or receivers of information. Today advanced computing techniques (i.e., AI) are being Read More ›

Viking Longships Approaching at Sunset - illustration

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Author
News
Date
September 21, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Events, Military

Tagged
Arthur Herman, COSM 2021}

Expert in Defense and Technology To Speak at COSM

_{By looking to the past, historian Arthur Herman charts a hopeful path into the future} _{News

September 21, 2021

3

Artificial Intelligence, Events, Military}

This November, historian Arthur Herman will be addressing the use of artificial intelligence in military preparedness at COSM 2021, an exclusive national summit exploring the myriad ways in which technology is shaping the world around us. Herman received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in history and classics. Since then, he has written nine books, including New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World, Pulitzer Prize finalist Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age, and Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, which was named one of the Economist’s Best Books of 2012. Herman is now a senior Read More ›

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Author
News
Date
September 18, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Ethics

Tagged
J. J. Schindler, Jonathan Sperling, Joseph Fifelski, Katerina Kovalchyk, Peter Mai, robotics, Roy (film), Science fiction}

One Day the Door to the Robot’s Shop Opens – Sci-fi Saturday

_{Roy, the robot, is suddenly confronted by another robot, determined to kill or die} _{News

September 18, 2021

20

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Ethics}

“Roy” at DUST (July 23, 2021, 7:44 min) Roy is a sci-fi drama short film about a robot mechanic holed away in a rundown barn, living in a world of rustic antiques melded with futuristic sensibilities. He is a man forgotten by society and spends his days tinkering at projects. That is until someone opens the door into his shop. Roy is a story about compassion in the face of those affected by violence and despair. It explores the themes of how we relate to strangers and friends around us who have become bitter and jaded by the world. Roy poses this question: how do we face those transformed by violence and angry at the world? Review: This film won Read More ›

Motion Blur Stretcher Gurney Patient Hospital Emergency

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Author
News
Date
September 11, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Science}

When the AI Call Center Can’t Handle Crises —Sci-Fi Saturday

_{It’s not clear whether this is a bug or a feature but it is certainly something that could happen.} _{News

September 11, 2021

19

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Science}

“Lifeline” at DUST by Harry Jackson (September 6, 2021, 7:57 min) Jess, and her trial for a job at a high-tech call centre. When her competitor suddenly collapses, her only means to save him is a state of the art computer system. The problem is, the art is in a terrible state. Review: It’s a very good story. It illustrates the huge problem that any electronics-run system faces: Problems that only human intelligence can resolve. Gwyneth Keyworth, as Jess, sees that her co-worker Nathan Bryon is apparently collapsing at his desk. But she cannot call an ambulance because the high-tech call center does not allow that option. It’s not entirely clear why Jess does not use a private cell number Read More ›

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Author
Andrew McDiarmid
Date
September 10, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Technocracy

Tagged
Alan Turing, Charles Darwin, Erik J. Larson, Featured, Myth of Artificial Intelligence (book)}

Isn’t It Time for an Artificial Intelligence Reality Check?

_{Why do we think we’re so close to artificial general intelligence (AGI) when there are so many obstacles to overcome?} _{Andrew McDiarmid

September 10, 2021

5

Artificial Intelligence, Technocracy}

The Singularity is coming! The Singularity is coming! If you’re getting tired of hearing that “strong AI” is just around the corner, you’re not alone. The Stephen Hawkings, Ray Kurzweils, and Elon Musks of the world have been putting humanity on notice with predictions of machines overtaking humans for decades. It’s either the dawn of utopia or the start of a nightmare, depending on who’s talking. And every time they’re issued, the media jumps on them, because being on the cusp of a new era of intelligent beings is news. What’s missing from these confident claims, however, is a realistic assessment of the problems that rank-and-file computer scientists wrestle with every day — namely, the problem of intelligence. In their Read More ›