Can a Totalitarian State Advance AI?
China vs. Hong Kong provides a test caseGeorge Orwell identified two characteristics of a totalitarian state that offer insight into its central intellectual weaknesses.
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Why we don’t think like computers
If we thought like computers, we would repeat package directions over and over again unless someone told us to stopRobert J. Marks: We have a number of aspects that we exhibit that are not algorithmic. I would say, qualia, creativity, sentience, consciousness are probably things that you cannot write a computer program to simulate.
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New Federal Regulations Favor a Shift to 5G Cars
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is abandoning the older DSRC protocol for cellular vehicle-to-everything (CV2X)Auto manufacturers would prefer to just move ahead with 5G but safety watchdogs argue that lifesaving changes could and should be implemented now with DSRC.
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Moore or Less: Why the Exponential Speed of AI Can’t Be Sustained
Faster computers only help the performance of AI algorithms that require search marginally.Exponential growth is often the beginning of a sigmoid or s-shaped curve where growth that appears to be exponential but eventually slows and reaches a saturation point. We see this in nature, for example, in bacteria.
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Just a light frost—or AI winter?
It’s nice to be right once in a while—check out the evidence for yourselfAbout a year ago, I wrote that mounting AI hype would likely give way to yet another AI winter. Now, according to the panelists at “the world’s leading academic AI conference” the temperature is already falling.
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Playing Tetris Shows That True AI Is Impossible
Here’s a look inside my brain that will show you whyThe intensity of my mental processing brought about an observable brain state. The causality did not go in the other direction; the magenta brain state did not increase my conscious process. This type of observation causes a problem for those hoping to duplicate human intelligence in a computer program.
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New Tech to Warn Drivers and Cars of Cyclists Ahead
Most people I have talked know (or knew) people who were struck by motor vehicles, either as cyclists or pedestriansHopefully, in ten years’ time, a bike suddenly emerging from behind a roadside dumpster will be fully visible to both the car and the driver long before a driver would usually see it today.
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Death Spurs Demand for More Oversight of Self-Driving Cars
The National Transportation Safety Board seeks uniform standards for the previously voluntary information provided by carmakersDespite the hype and a few bad actors, here at the Walter Bradley Institute, we believe in AI. The deployment of any technology—dams, bridges, buildings—requires care and, at times, oversight. Not to slow down progress but to protect us from ourselves. As the great scientist Richard Feynman put it, the easiest person to fool is oneself.
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I Am Giving Up Cycling
It’s just not worth it if a machine can beat meIt’s not that I cannot cycle or that I don’t like to or that I’m not good at it (for a human). But just the other day, as I pedaled along, I was passed by a motorcycle. Its speed was incredible! I appeared to be pedaling in place as the machine zoomed into the distance. In that moment, it became all too clear that my days as a meaningful human were ending. The machine was my better. Okay. That is not true. I am not going to quit cycling. And, being passed by a motorcycle—a machine we built purposely to go faster than anything our two legs can achieve—is not a meaningful measure of my prowess as a cyclist. Many Read More ›
Abandoning Reality: Getting Lost in Oculus Quest’s VR
Amazing. And time to remember the history. I was the chair of the first serious conference dedicated to virtual reality twenty-five years agoVirtual reality got its start in the US Air Force’s investigation of heads-up display for pilots. Just as you see a candy wrapper on your dashboard reflected in the windshield while you drive, pilots could have nearly a instantaneous view of instrumentation simply by focusing their eyes from far objects to near.
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Gladwell’s Autonomy: The Future of Our Cars But Not Ourselves?
Malcolm Gladwell’s recent film probes independence, individuality, and what cars mean to usIn order to allow for autonomy to develop, the degrees of freedom available on the public roadways will probably have to decrease.
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Random Comments on the Passing Scene: Carbon Computing and Much More
Child porn traffickers arrested despite their attempts to hide using high tech and BitcoinAlso, McDonald’s doubles down on self-ordering kiosks, acquires automation firm.
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Would You Want Immortal Life as a Cyborg?
Would you give up your right arm for a robotic device that performs better? Think about itTranshumanism can mean uploading one’s mind into cyberspace. But some transhumanists hope to slowly morph into “immortal cyborgs” with endlessly replaceable parts. Five years ago, we were told, we were all turning into cyborgs: Did you recently welcome a child into the world? Congratulations! An upstanding responsible parent such as yourself is surely doing all you can to prepare your little one for all the pitfalls life has in store. However, thanks to technology, children born in 2014 may face a far different set of issues than you ever had to. And we’re not talking about simply learning to master a new generation of digital doohickeys, we’re talking about living in a world in which the very definition of “human” Read More ›
Can AI Prove That Shakespeare Had Ghostwriters?
An author’s unique style is like a fingerprint. AI can fill it inTurning AI loose on some of these vexing problems should give literary scholars more to write about rather than less. The AI verdict may not always be right but it is bound to be food for thought.
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Robot Police Dogs Spark Civil Rights Questions
Boston Dynamics says that its lease agreements require that the robots not be used to “physically harm or intimidate people.”The civil liberties group’s concerns stem from the fact that there are few or no current legal restrictions on how the robots are to be used.
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What Can the Cybertruck Tell Us About Silicon Valley?
Does Elon Musk’s view of human beings help account for his new truck’s massive armor?Pardon me but, while I know that a good truck needs to be tough, I never thought it needed to be a Mad Max-styled warrior vehicle. Apparently, Musk does. Why?
Read More ›Tesla’s Cybertruck Runs on … Hype?
When planning for the future, Tesla should maybe think reality, not Mad MaxThe steel ball thrown at the unbreakable window broke the glass. Twice. Unfortunately, Musk had to spend the rest of the demo with a damaged car in the background.
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Pizza Robots Get the Pink Slip
True, the doughbots didn’t make good pizza. But is the message about them or something else?I have nothing against robots. (I am against bad pizza.) I do, however, get very tired of the science fiction-fantasy of humanity-squashing robots. And that’s all it is: A fantasy.
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Your Computer Is an Autistic Savant
It knows everything except what mattersComputers, like a friend of mine, are great at very narrowly defined tasks, like playing Go, retrieving facts, and calculating correlations. But they are utterly unreliable for anything requiring true understanding, wisdom, or common sense.
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Transhumanism—Is It a Dangerous Idea?
Some Silicon Valley greats hope to merge with machines to live forever. But what then?The late philosopher Jerry Fodor (1935—2017) said that the reason “we’re all materialists” is that the alternatives seem even worse. Transhumanism, had he lived to see it develop, would give him pause for further reflection.
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