CategoryArtificial Intelligence
Why Are Some Retail Stores Ditching Self-Checkout?
Rising theft rates are a key motivator but other problems have arisen, like preventing alcohol sales to minors
AI Is Going to Do the Dating for You
Making dating "easier" with AI might actually end up making it a lot harder.
AI and Common Sense
Large Language Models and paraprosdokian one-liners
Will Artificial Intelligence Revolutionize Math?
In an article in Nature, mathematician Thomas Fink makes the case that AI can rapidly falsify wrong conjectures. But what about its built-in limitations?
What Drives the Belief That We Live in a Computer Sim Universe?
The lack of evidence for the sim is admitted — but then we are challenged to prove that it ISN’T true…
Is the New Synthesia Piano Program a Crutch—or a Skateboard?
The Synthesia program is a piano roll in digital form. But instead of a player piano, there is a human piano player, playing the part of the player piano's trackerbar.
A Man, A Boat, and a Goat — and a Chatbot!
Forty-five years ago, Douglas Hofstadter noted a key problem with AI: It can’t do the astonishing things our brains do, as chatbots reveal when asked to solve puzzles
Jerry Seinfeld Had a Bone to Pick with AI in His Duke Speech
Seinfeld: the implicit message of AI is that "you can't do it"The iconic comedian and author Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech to the class of 2024 at Duke University; as a supporter of the state of Israel, dozens of students walked out of the ceremony, chanting “free Palestine” while the larger crowds in the stadium counteracted by chanting “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” Seinfeld went on to give a wise, insightful, and of course, hilarious speech about hard work, family, and using one’s privilege to benefit the world. He also had some comedic remarks on artificial intelligence, and what the hype over large language models unfortunately says about modern American culture. “AI is the most embarrassing thing we’ve invented during man’s timeline on earth,” said Seinfeld. “This seems to be the justification Read More ›
Bill Dembski at COSM 2023
The mathematician and philosopher chats about AI and the questions it raisesEvery COSM conference, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay Richards sits down with some of the keynote speakers to debrief and discuss important and relevant topics. Here, Richards is joined by mathematician, philosopher, and entrepreneur William (Bill) Dembski, author of over two dozen books, including Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (2014). Together they discuss the limits and possibilities of AI, the philosophical questions posed by some of these new technologies, and the “conversations” Dembski has had with ChatGPT. Watch the short interview now and enjoy access to ALL of last year’s star-studded COSM conference.
The Financial World Has Lost the Plot
Cathie Wood on the investment opportunities of the future.“I feel as though the financial world has lost the plot,” said Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, in last year’s star-studded COSM conference. Investors are avoiding risk and investing in safe but unpromising world of the past, said Wood, who went on to discuss the “trends and investment opportunities in technologies related to public blockchains, multiomic sequencing, energy storage, and robotics, that are tied together by advances in artificial intelligence.” Watch her intriguing talk below and let us know what you think of it in the comments! The fourth and final sequence of COSM 2023 videos have now been added to our YouTube channel, so you can enjoy a host of stimulating talks, panels, and conversations about artificial intelligence, Read More ›
Final Release of COSM 2023 Videos!
The fourth and final tranche of COSM 2023 videos is now available.The fourth and final tranche of COSM 2023 videos is now available — featuring topics such as how advances in artificial intelligence may affect automobile transportation, solutions to the vast amounts of energy artificial intelligence will require, and why we might be on the brink of seeing the most disruptive innovations the world has ever seen. If you weren’t able to attend, or perhaps you want to revisit some of your favorite speakers, take a look at our COSM 2023 playlist on YouTube! A few highlights of the recently released videos: You can also watch backstage interviews, in which Senior Fellow Jay Richards goes into greater depth with several speakers on the topics addressed onstage. Click here to go to Read More ›
What Chatbots Have Achieved, and What They Haven’t — and Can’t
Chatbots (LLMs) succeeded where the older expert systems I used to work on failed but that does not mean that they are creative
The Uniqueness of the Human Writer
LLMs are shortcuts, but sometimes the shortcut makes you miss the point of the journey
Does ChatGPT Think?
Are Large Language Models like ChatGPT capable of legitimate thought?It’s one of the hot topic questions and will almost certainly continue to be. Are Large Language Models like ChatGPT capable of legitimate thought? And what counts as “thinking”? Is there a quality to the concept that makes it distinctly human, or are the tech futurists right? Can AI computation be considered a type of cognitive activity? Stephen Wolfram, George Gilder, and Bob Metcalfe spoke on the possibilities and limits of AI at last year’s star-studded COSM conference. We are experiencing watershed moments in technology, with lots of hype to go along with it, but are we putting the cart before the horse in some cases? Discover more in this special recording on YouTube.
Don’t Trust AI to Sketch Your Suspects
The resemblance is definitely NOT uncanny in this caseA man broke into an old woman’s house recently, and after being described to the police in Kent, England, an AI image of the fellow was rendered. Usually, of course, an artist will sketch the profile of the criminal suspect based on details provided by the witness, but now AI is having its shot; only, the result was laughable. The profile looked like it could have come from the 2008 version of the Wii. It isn’t detailed, the neck and head aren’t ratioed like a real person’s would be, and it just simply came out cartoonish. Frank Landymore reported on the incident over at Futurism, writing, The suspect is described as being a white man around five feet, five inches Read More ›
No, Chatbots Are Not Conscious
The arguments in favor of computer consciousness remain weakIn the midst of all the chatter surrounding AI and chatbots, one might be led to believe that the concepts of consciousness or even the soul, let alone the afterlife, are simply relics of outdated beliefs. This sentiment is often echoed by some scientists, raising the question: Is this truly the case? And should we readily accept this perspective? In a recent episode of Mindscape, renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist Raphael Millerie, who boasts an Oxford education and is now a fellow at the Center of Science and Society, teamed up with Sean Carroll, a prominent theoretical physicist known for debunking notions of the soul and the afterlife, to delve into the world of chatbots and AI (see episode 230). Read More ›
The New Tower of Babel
The old ways of arguing and understanding each other are on the decline, if not on life support.We all know Babel (no, not the language learning company). It’s in Genesis. The Biblical story about God making so many languages and dialects and (let’s add) opinions that no one could understand each other or effectively communicate. One legacy of the triumph of digital technology and AI in every corner of our existence is that we’ve recreated this Babel. Let me try to unpack this, and bear with me if it seems I’m saying something derogatory about one belief or another — my aim is to avoid that game and try to explain the mechanism, the social and cultural story, by which our new Babel is ascendant, and the old ways of arguing and understanding each other are on Read More ›
Robert J. Marks Discusses Artificial Intelligence in D.C.
Marks is making the rounds talking about AI and his new book.