Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryArtificial Intelligence

artificial-intelligence-concept-robotic-hand-is-holding-human-brain-3d-rendered-illustration-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Artificial intelligence concept. Robotic hand is holding human brain. 3D rendered illustration.
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post
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News
Date
May 5, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Medicine and Health
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Failed Prophecies of the Big “AI Takeover” Come at a Cost

Like IBM Watson in medicine, they don’t just fail; they take time, money, and energy from more promising digital innovations
News
May 5, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Medicine and Health

Surveying the time line of prophecies that AI will take over “soon” is entertaining. At Slate, business studies profs Jeffrey Funk and Gary Smith offer a whirlwind tour starting in the 1950s, with stops along the way at 1970 (“In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being”) and at 2014: In 2014, Ray Kurzweil predicted that by 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence and will have all of the intellectual and emotional capabilities of humans, including “the ability to tell a joke, to be funny, to be romantic, to be loving, to be sexy.” As we move closer to 2029, Kurzweil talks more about 2045. Jeffrey Funk and Read More ›

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Digital eye. Green matrix background. Concept of Artificial Intelligence
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post
Author
News
Date
May 4, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Media, Philosophy of Mind
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Researcher: Fear of AI Caused by Four Common Misconceptions

AI isn't panning out the way so many popular media articles predicted and there are reasons for that, a computer science prof says
News
May 4, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Media, Philosophy of Mind

As part of the Demystifying AI series, software engineer Ben Dickson, founder of TechTalks, tackles some of the most serious misunderstandings he thinks the public has about AI. For example, while AI can win in board games, where the map is the territory, “some of the early goals of AI like housekeeper robots and self-driving cars continue to recede as we approach them.” So why isn’t AI panning out the way so many popular media articles predicted? Dickson points to a recent article at ArXiv by professor Melanie Mitchell of the Santa Fe Institute, author of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide For Thinking Humans (2019): The year 2020 was supposed to herald the arrival of self-driving cars. Five years earlier, a Read More ›

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Concept of rivalry between robots and humans
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post
Author
Stephen Berger
Date
May 2, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Will Humans Ever Be Fully Replaceable by AI? Part 2

Particles and energy can be translated into each other. Might man also be a type of duality, with a natural and a spiritual reality?
Stephen Berger
May 2, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

In Part 1, we looked at the many dimensions to our thinking. Now, we ask, What then is man? Is man simply a complex biological machine that is fully explained by analyzing it in the four dimensions of space and time? Is the brain just a biological computer fully contained in four dimensions? Most of the world’s religions hold that man exists beyond the mere physical. Man has a soul, a spirit; these exist outside of the physical universe. There are characteristics, attributes, and values that are very real and have great impact, but which defy direct observation or quantification. String theory, an active research area in modern physics, requires 10 or 11 dimensions to fully explain what we see Read More ›

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Futuristic and sci-fi human android portrait with pcb metallic skin and binary code green background. AI, IT, technology, robotics, science, transhumanism 3D rendering illustration concepts.
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post
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News
Date
May 1, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind
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Sci-fi Saturday: The Artist’s Android Has a Surprise for Him…

He makes the fateful decision to allow her to depart from her programming during a crisis
News
May 1, 2021
12
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind

“Muse” (2020) by Azhur Saleem and (April 13, 2021 at DUST, 12:33 min) “An artist turns to his android muse for help when trying to sell his newest paintings, but events take a dark and disturbing turn when the android learns what has inspired the work.” An artist welcomes in an art gallery owner to view his latest offerings, his in-house android at his beck and call. When the meeting turns sour and the guest tries to leave, Alderman calls on Kay and… So begins the next day. When police officers come knocking regarding an altercation outside, it transpires that Alderman has amended Kay’s CPU to respond to un-programmed demands – including murder to which she complies and the police Read More ›

neural-networks-of-the-human-brain-3d-illustration-of-abstract-nerve-centers-electrical-impulses-in-brain-bright-full-color-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Neural networks of the human brain. 3d illustration of abstract nerve centers. Electrical impulses in brain. Bright full color
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post
Author
News
Date
April 30, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Media, Neuroscience
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Young Filmmaker Tackles the Hype About Computing the Brain

In Silico, in which Noah Hutton sorts hope from hype, goes livestream today
News
April 30, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Media, Neuroscience

Twelve years ago Noah Hutton (pictured), who had some background in neuroscience, heard prominent neuroscientist Henry Markram tell viewers in a TED talk that he had determined how to simulate a complete human brain, via supercomputers, within a decade. At the time, Hutton didn’t question that and he started to document the Blue Brain project that Markham directed, which started with a mouse brain. But then things stalled: As Hutton recounted in Scientific American yesterday, “there were magnificent fly-through visualizations of the first square millimeter of simulated rat brain set to The Blue Danube available in a visitor’s screening room, but a definite lack of progress along the road map towards a human brain.” There was, however, the recognition that Read More ›

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set of Detective of Holmes times
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News
Date
April 29, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Philosophy
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Abduction: A Thinking Skill You Can Do But Computers Can’t

A Norwegian police detective fills us in on how to use abduction for better thinking
News
April 29, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Philosophy

Ivar Fahsing, detective chief superintendent at the Norwegian Police University College, has “worked on some of the worst crimes in Norway for 30 years.” He had to hone his thinking skills but, he says, many of us have never learned to “make safe judgments under pressure.” He is also convinced that any of us can improve our skills and he offers some help from his experience investigating crimes. One skill he focuses on is abduction, which was Sherlock Holmes’s favorite method. Yes, Holmes always tells his sidekick and foil, Dr. Watson, that he uses deduction — but he doesn’t: In the Sherlock Holmes novels, our titular hero continuously assails Dr Watson, a man of science, about the merits of deductive Read More ›

woman-passenger-sitting-in-the-backseat-and-selects-a-route-when-her-self-driving-car-rides-on-the-highway-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Woman passenger sitting in the backseat and selects a route when her self-driving car rides on the highway.
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
April 29, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance
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Tesla Continues to Walk Back Full Self-Driving Claims

In 2016, Tesla (TSLA) couldn’t tell enough people that its cars would soon drive themselves
Jonathan Bartlett
April 29, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

In 2019, Tesla raised billions of dollars on the prospect of a fleet of a million robotaxis by the next year. However, starting on the Q3 2019 earnings call, CEO Elon Musk started walking back some of those claims. To begin with, in that earnings call, Musk started saying that “feature complete” really just meant that the “City Streets” version would be operable, not that it could actually drive without assistance. A year later, in regulatory filings with the California DMV, Tesla said, “As such, a final release of City Streets will continue to be an SAE Level 2, advanced driver-assistance feature.” In the accepted terminology around levels of self-driving, truly self-driving vehicles are classed as SAE Level 5. Level Read More ›

face-recognition-and-personal-identification-technologies-in-street-surveillance-cameras-law-enforcement-control-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Face recognition and personal identification technologies in street surveillance cameras, law enforcement control.
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post
Author
Caitlin Cory
Date
April 28, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Law, Surveillance
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Canada Orders Facial Recognition App to Cease and Desist

Your face is likely already stored in this app's database
Caitlin Cory
April 28, 2021
9
Artificial Intelligence, Law, Surveillance

In February, Canada released the findings of a year-long investigation into the US-based facial recognition app, Clearview AI. The investigation declared Clearview’s actions illegal within Canada and ordered the company to cease operations within the country and to remove all Canadian citizens from its database. “What Clearview does is mass surveillance, and it is illegal,” said Canadian Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien. So what is Clearview AI? And why has it raised the ire of our neighbors to the North? Clearview AI, Inc. Clearview AI is a facial recognition company marketed primarily to law enforcement agencies. It boasts a database of over 3 billion facial images “scraped” from public sources online such as news articles and social media sites. In other Read More ›

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Motorsport racing track and car slammed brakes sign
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post
Author
Richard W. Stevens
Date
April 28, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Law
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Artificial Intelligence Slams on the Brakes

The problem of autonomous cars suddenly slamming the brakes is becoming well known and it has no known fix
Richard W. Stevens
April 28, 2021
9
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Law

Having just donated your well-worn 1994 Toyota Camry to charity, you’re driving a brand new 2020 Honda sedan on a major street, enjoying air-conditioned comfort on a sunny day, with the satellite radio service narrowcasting tunes from the soundtrack of your life. Then, WHAM! In a half second, the car slows from 45 to 20 — and you never touched the brake pedal. You never saw it coming but your neck is still reminding you painfully of your whiplash injury. A close family member experienced this exact scenario just a month ago. She never touched the brake pedal. What happened? The dealership’s sales representative had not explained each and every feature of this postmodern car and certainly didn’t warn about Read More ›

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Crypto Currency Digital Market Monitor
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
April 27, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics
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Will Popularity Spell Doom for Bitcoin?

How is that possible? Well, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have a hidden weakness…
Jonathan Bartlett
April 27, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Cryptocurrencies, from Ethereum to Bitcoin to Dogecoin, seem to be all the rage these days. Altcoins (i.e., lesser-known cryptocurrencies) have become increasingly mainstream. The increasing fracturing and pluralism in the cryptocurrency space has meant that few people are directly trading with any particular currency. Most users go through trading and wallet platforms where the platform —not their own computers—hosts the cryptocurrency. Additionally, transactions are increasingly processed via third parties as well, not directly on the cryptocurrency platform. This separation between the user and the direct cryptocurrency platform has enabled a new option: a payment gateway for a website that collects payments in a number of different cryptocurrencies using a single set of tools. PayPal, one of the top gateways, recently Read More ›

automation engineer
At the Factory: Automation Engineer Uses Laptop for Programming Robotic Arm. New Era in Automatic Manufacturing Industry.
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post
Author
Stephen Berger
Date
April 27, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Science
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Will Humans Ever Be Fully Replaceable by AI? Part 1

We must first determine, what is a person and what is the nature of the universe in which a person can exist?
Stephen Berger
April 27, 2021
15
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Science

The title question has been around for quite some time. In this discussion, I would like to take an ontological look at this question. What is the essential nature of being a person? To fully replace humans, what must AI machines become capable of? IF we want to consider the possibility of making humans obsolete, we need to know what is the essence of humanity? What is the ontological nature of a person? What characteristics define being a person? Even before we can address the essential nature of a person, we must identify the essential nature of the universe in which that person exists. What is the universe? How many dimensions does it have? Can the universe, or in it Read More ›

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Chat bot concept
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 25, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Here’s a Terrific Video Featuring Myth of AI Author Erik Larson

Larson, an AI professional, explains why the popular noise we hear about AI “taking over” is hype
William A. Dembski
April 25, 2021
1
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Here’s a terrific video interview that Larson did with Academic Influence. It was done before his book was released and gives a succinct summary of the book. It’s short (15 minutes, compared to the hour-long interview with Brookings described in my previous post). For not only the full video of this interview with Larson but also a transcript of it, go to the Academic Influence website here. For a nice period-piece video on Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program, check out this YouTube video:

detective-board-with-photos-of-suspected-criminals-crime-scenes-and-evidence-with-red-threads-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Detective board with photos of suspected criminals, crime scenes and evidence with red threads
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 24, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy
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Why Computers Will Likely Never Perform Abductive Inferences

As Erik Larson points out in The Myth of Artificial Intelligence, what computers “know” must be painstakingly programmed
William A. Dembski
April 24, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, here, and here. Larson did an interesting podcast with the Brookings Institution through its Lawfare Blog shortly after the release of his book. It’s well worth a listen, and Larson elucidates in that interview many of the key points in his book. The one place in the interview where I wish he had elaborated further was on the question of abductive inference (aka retroductive inference or inference to the best explanation). For me, the key to understanding why computers cannot, and most likely will never, be able to perform abductive inferences is the problem of underdetermination of explanation by data. This may seem like a mouthful, but the idea is straightforward. Read More ›

Digital Brain
Digital brain and mind upload or uploading human thinking concept as a neurological organ being tranformed to digitalized pixels uploaded to virtual space or a cloud server as an artificial intelligence symbol or neuroscience technology in a 3D illustration style.
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 23, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Are We Spiritual Machines? Are We Machines at All?

Inventor Ray Kurzweil proposed in 1999 that within the next thirty years we will upload ourselves into computers as virtual persons, programs on machines
William A. Dembski
April 23, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, and here. The event at which I moderated the discussion about Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines was the 1998 George Gilder Telecosm conference, which occurred in the fall of that year at Lake Tahoe (I remember baseball players Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire chasing each other for home run leadership at the time). In response to the discussion, I wrote a paper for First Things titled “Are We Spiritual Machines?” — it is still available online at the link just given, and its arguments remain current and relevant. According to The Age of Spiritual Machines , machine intelligence is the next great step in the evolution of intelligence. That man Read More ›

in-the-futuristic-laboratory-creative-engineer-works-on-the-transparent-computer-display-screen-shows-interactive-user-interface-with-deep-learning-system-artificial-intelligence-prototype-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
In the Futuristic Laboratory Creative Engineer Works on the Transparent Computer Display. Screen Shows Interactive User Interface with Deep Learning System, Artificial Intelligence Prototype.
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 22, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
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A Critical Look at the Myth of “Deep Learning”

“Deep learning” is as misnamed a computational technique as exists.
William A. Dembski
April 22, 2021
2
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, and here. “Deep learning” is as misnamed a computational technique as exists. The actual technique refers to multi-layered neural networks, and, true enough, those multi-layers can do a lot of significant computational work. But the phrase “deep learning” suggests that the machine is doing something profound and beyond the capacity of humans. That’s far from the case. The Wikipedia article on deep learning is instructive in this regard. Consider the following image used there to illustrate deep learning: Note the rendition of the elephant at the top and compare it with the image of the elephant as we experience it at the bottom. The image at the bottom is rich, Read More ›

changing-the-past-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Changing the Past
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post
Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
April 22, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Social Media, Technocracy
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China: Snitching on Those Who Recall Non-Approved History

The Communist Party of China wants its centennial to proceed this year without memory of the millions dead in the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square
Heather Zeiger
April 22, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Social Media, Technocracy

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell, 1984 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed on July 23, 1921, so is gearing up for the hundredth anniversary of its founding with the theme “Forever Following the Party.” In preparation, the Cyberspace Administration of China has launched a hotline for citizens to report online statements that contradict the Party’s official version of its history. A translation of the announcement from the Central Network Information Office Reporting Center is available on former American diplomat David Cowhig’s blog: One part of the announcement reads: In order to avoid misleading the public with false statements, maintain a clear cyberspace and create a good atmosphere Read More ›

computer questions.jpg
Businessman with a computer monitor head and question marks
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 21, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Artificial Intelligence Understands by Not Understanding

The secret to writing a program for a sympathetic chatbot is surprisingly simple…
William A. Dembski
April 21, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my two earlier posts, here and here. With natural language processing, Larson amusingly retells the story of Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program, in which the program, acting as a Rogerian therapist, simply mirrors back to the human what the human says. Carl Rogers, the psychologist, advocated a “non-directive” form of therapy where, rather than tell the patient what to do, the therapist reflected back what the patient was saying, as a way of getting the patient to solve one’s own problems. Much like Eugene Goostman, whom I’ve already mentioned in this series, ELIZA is a cheat, though to its inventor Weizenbaum’s credit, he recognized from the get-go that it was a cheat. Read More ›

car and bus accident.jpg
Car and bus accident, bumper to bumper
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 20, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming
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Automated Driving and Other Failures of AI

How would autonomous cars manage in an environment where eye contact with other drivers is important?
William A. Dembski
April 20, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Yesterday I posted a review here of philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. There’s a lot more I would like to say. Here are some additional notes, to which I will add in a couple of future posts. Three of the failures of Big Tech that I listed earlier (Eugene Goostman, Tay, and the image analyzer that Google lobotomized so that it could no longer detect gorillas, even mistakenly) were obvious frauds and/or blunders. Goostman was a fraud out of the box. Tay a blunder that might be fixed in the sense that its racist language could be mitigated through some appropriate machine learning. And the Google image analyzer — well that was just pathetic: either retire the image Read More ›

technology-and-engineering-concept-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Technology and engineering concept
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 19, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Artificial Intelligence: Unseating the Inevitability Narrative

World-class chess, Go, and Jeopardy-playing programs are impressive, but they prove nothing about whether computers can be made to achieve AGI
William A. Dembski
April 19, 2021
10
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Back in 1998, I moderated a discussion at which Ray Kurzweil gave listeners a preview of his then forthcoming book The Age of Spiritual Machines, in which he described how machines were poised to match and then exceed human cognition, a theme he doubled down on in subsequent books (such as The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind). For Kurzweil, it is inevitable that machines will match and then exceed us: Moore’s Law guarantees that machines will attain the needed computational power to simulate our brains, after which the challenge will be for us to keep pace with machines..  Kurzweil’s respondents at the discussion were John Searle, Thomas Ray, and Michael Denton, and they were all to varying degrees critical of his strong Read More ›

two-hr-specialists-man-and-woman-analyzing-the-market-of-alumni-to-boost-the-intern-program-at-international-consulting-company-hiring-new-talented-officers-social-media-hologram-icons-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Two HR specialists man and woman analyzing the market of alumni to boost the intern program at international consulting company. Hiring new talented officers. Social media hologram icons.
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post
Author
George Bara and Jeffrey Funk
Date
April 19, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Work
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AI’s Future: Combining RPA With AI to Augment Knowledge Workers

The work machines can’t do is usually the rewarding part, both personally and financially
George Bara and Jeffrey Funk
April 19, 2021
6
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Work

Counterterrorism requires analysts to work through millions of Twitter and Facebook messages, YouTube videos, and websites in multiple languages, far too much work for humans. But a combination of AI (artificial intelligence) and RPA (robotic process automation) can help humans do this work, leaving humans in charge of the most complex and important decisions. AI systems can crawl through documents in any language, automatically translating them, extracting names of people and organizations, and doing sentiment analysis of conversations to identify key text to be considered later by humans. This text can be automatically organized into proper bins using RPA, enabling a data processing and analytics pipeline that can handle large amounts of content at speeds never possible in the past. Read More ›