Smart Cities?: Proceed With Caution!
Zaheer Allam provides a balanced view of the future impact of AI on societyIn some Smart City master plans, our privacy will be seriously compromised.
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If Big Tech Were Spinning Its Wheels, Would We Know?
Not necessarily, says an economics prof who worries about the slowing pace of innovation but not of hypeThe slowing Funk refers to is in fundamental innovations like transistors and lasers. The apparent progress often turns out to be in patent applications for a bewildering array of comparatively insignificant mobile phone apps.
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What Do the Turing Test and ID Have in Common?
George D. Montañez shows that if a test can detect intelligence in computers, a test could also detect intelligent design in natureThe Turing test for design in computers relies on the same principles as the detection of design in nature. The materialist can have, in principle, no intelligence in either computers or nature or possible intelligence in both. But he can’t pick and choose.
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Anti-Technology Backlash: What’s Real? What’s Myth?
First, the Luddites, who started it all, were smarter than many people thinkBut there is not much point in being a traditional Luddite today. You don’t want to smash the robot; you want to bring the price down to where you can own a piece of it.
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A Type of Reasoning AI Can’t Replace
Abductive reasoning requires creativity, in addition to computationAI, says William Littlefield, would get stuck in an endless loop with abductive reasoning, which is an inference to the best explanation or an educated guess. But it plays an important role in creating hypotheses in the sciences.
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How You Can Really Know You’re Talking to a Computer
In a lively exchange, computer science experts offer some savvy adviceClaims that a given program has “passed the Turing test” should be treated skeptically because a program can be optimized to pass the Turing test without demonstrating any particular intelligence.
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Can We Engineer Consciousness in a Robot?
One neuroscientist thinks we need only “simple guidelines.” His underlying assumptions are just wrongGraziano's approach is not new. Ancient philosophers thought the mind was fire (not too long after the discovery of fire). Early modern philosophers thought the mind was a machine (just as the machine age got started). Now suddenly it's a computer…
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Another Life: All Fun, Games Till an AI Falls in Love
Then it descends into a convoluted drift of uncertain storytellingAnd the victim is not primarily the viewer, who has other options. The victim is the art itself.
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The Brain: Junkyard, Watch, or Antenna?
A warped genius reviews the options, as he seeks ultimate power - a taleAfter many dead ends, Flim realized that all forms of human power are ultimately controlled by the human mind. Thus, if he could harness the power of the mind, he would finally be able to create anything his heart could desire.
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Has AI been racist?
AI is, left to itself, inherently unthinking, which can result in insensitivity and biasJust any available data swatched into systems may embody prejudices that only become evident in use.
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Are Robot Pastors the Answer to Religion’s Decline?
Many Christians say no. Some Buddhists say yes. What is expected of the pastor?
The Three Laws of Robotics Have Failed the Robots
Almost no one out there thinks that Isaac Asimov's Three Laws could work for truly intelligent AI
“Friendly” Artificial Intelligence Would Kill Us
Is that a shocking idea? Let’s follow the logicWe don't want to invent a stupid god who accidentally turns the universe into grey goo or paperclips, But any god we create in our image will be just as incompetent and evil as we are, if not more so. A dilemma!
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Can computers simply evolve greater intelligence?
Maybe it sounds attractive but nature doesn't seem to work quite that way
Can Free Will Really Be a Scientific Idea?
Yes, if we look at it from the perspective of information theory
Why the Brain Is Not at All like a Computer
Seeing the brain as a computer is an easy misconception rather than an informative image, says neuroscientist Yuri DanilovAs soon as you assume that each neuron is a microprocessor, says Danilov, you assume that there is a programmer. There is no programmer in the brain; there are no algorithms in the brain. However, it is "extremely painful" for many people to let go of the idea.
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Do We Need To Learn from AI How To Think Better?
No, and a moment’s thought shows why not
AlterEgo Does Not Read Your Mind
What it really does may surprise you but many claims made for it are deceptive
What You See That the Machine Doesn’t
You see the “skeleton” of an idea