Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryArtificial general intelligence (AGI)

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A humanoid robot philosopher contemplating the nature of consciousness in a virtual reality chamber, abstract digital environment with neural networks and philosophical texts, Innovative style

Brain Surgeon Shows Why AI Can Never Become Human

Spoiler alert: AI requires physical hardware; the mind does not

AI can never be more than a machine; the human mind soars far above any machine model. Be nice to your robot. But don’t think she is human.

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great idea concept

Podcast: A New Test to Measure Understanding in AI Models

The Turing Test 2.0 is based on the view that intelligence is the ability to extract new knowledge from existing information and apply it consistently across time and context

The Turing Test 2.0 mirrors the way good teachers test students — not asking for memorized answers but for concepts to be applied in unfamiliar situations.

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Bearded businessman in a suit looking surprised

A Realistic Direction for Artificial General Intelligence Today

Based on GPT5's performance to date, it would make a superb substitute for a mansplainer I know of — call him Brock

The fundamental problem remains; models like GPT-5 are hobbled by their inherent inability to relate the text they input and output to the real world.

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Futuristic and conceptual image representing smart integration, featuring the letters 'AI' stylized in a high-tech font, surrounded by intricate circuit connections, advanced artificial intelligence

Measuring Machine Intelligence Using Turing Test 2.0

Podcast: Georgios Mappouras’s updated approach asks whether machines can go beyond imitation to produce new knowledge

Mappouras’s General Intelligence Threshold offers a test question: Can the system generate insights that were not directly programmed into it?

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mountain peak in low clouds

Artificial Intelligence, Science and the Limits of Knowledge

In Part 3, I show that AI, like science, has limits. It depends on narrowing a problem: making it specific, discarding most possibilities, sealing it inside a representation and specification

Here’s the problem with artificial general intelligence: asking how to make systems “general” is asking how to remove the very constraints that made them work.

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Woman approaches giant digital face futuristic technology

Wide AI, While Still Just Automation, Is a Genuine Advance

Part 2: Truly general intelligence is still a mystery. In fact, it’s more mysterious now than it was in 2016

Even when we get a quantum leap forward, it quickly signals that it too is a dead end for the bolder ambitions of true AGI.

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Advanced High Precision Robot Arm inside Bright Electronics Factory. Electronic Devices Production Industry. Component Installation on Circuit Board. Fully Automated Modern PCB Assembly Line.

Surprise: Artificial intelligence Is Still Just Automation

I wrote this in 2016. And it is still true in 2025. A reflection in three parts

When I first wrote this almost a decade ago, “AI” was already a cultural Rorschach test. To some, it was exciting and futuristic. To others, it was ominous, Orwellian, or just marketing spin. Automation, by contrast, was the unglamorous cousin that conjured images of soulless machines taking over the last shreds of human purpose. But from the start, my view was simple: what we call “AI” today is still just automation. And automation is not a mind. That argument has aged better than I expected. In the years since, we’ve seen an explosion of so-called AI — from self-driving cars to ChatGPT — yet the distinction between AI and automation remains almost universally misunderstood. Recently, computational linguist Emily Bender and Read More ›

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A robot doing yoga, contemplating its existence, ai and technology concept

AI Consciousness Myths: Neuroscientist Offers a No-Hype Approach

Àlex Gómez-Marín’s physics background shows in the way that he dissects the hyped-up claims before responding to them

At present, it doesn’t sound as though consciousness studies can take us beyond our natural folk understanding of consciousness.

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Table games of chance, including tic tac toe, are set up in large size to entertain the party guests

ChatGPT-5 Tries Out “Rotated” Tic-Tac-Toe. You Be the Judge…

They say that dogs tend to resemble their owners. Chat GPT very much resembles Sam Altman — always confident, often wrong

It’s no mystery why LLMs aren’t intelligent in any meaningful way. The real mystery is why so many otherwise intelligent people still take the claims seriously.

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Robot Therapist AI Mental Healthcare Concept Future Psychology Support Empathy Technology Listening Session

AI Is Impacting Our Culture — But Not As We Were Told To Expect

Okay, your boss is not a robot. Your doctor is not a chatbot. But here are some things that are actually happening that we might not have expected

One change is that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT-5, seems to be acknowledging that the AI bubble might soon burst.

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Wren Bird Closeup

Part 3: A Wren Arrives — and Ruffles Many a Feather

Dr. Wren, a cognitive scientist, identifies a problem with assuming that adding another ten thousand pigeons to the project will produce novel designs...

We remain confronted by the same old mystery: who, or what, imagines the birdhouse in the first place?

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A mesmerizing illustration of mathematics featuring a vibrant swirling vortex of numbers symbols and geometric shapes in shades of electric blue crimson and gold set against a rich dark gray backgroun

Is AI Truly Creative? Here Is the Ultimate Test

People use the term “creative” in different ways. We need to define it rigorously and use a test based on that agreed definition

AI does not, at present, originate the kind of deep insight required to solve a open mathematical problem.

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gold panning for gold

Science Site: Is the AI Gold Rush Over? Has AI Just Plateaued?

The GPT-5 chatbot rollout has been so messy that serious questions are beginning to float above the seemingly automated hype

If this is a tech Gold Rush, based on recent news, we might be better off selling shovels than investing in the gold.

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Urban Pigeons: A Sunlit Gathering in City Steps

Part 2: Have the Superbirds Arrived? Are They Taking Over?

Dr. Avian now claims that his work with trained birds show that intelligence does not require inner models or internal representations, as formerly thought

Avian is perfectly clear: There is no mind at all in Coordinated Avian Models (CAMs). And yet, they’re behind a staggering number of new designs.

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Pigeon business portrait dressed as a manager or ceo in a formal office business suit with glasses and tie. Ai generated

Move Over, AI. Bird Brains Are Giving You a Run for Your Money

Could ten thousand birds develop a theory of mind just by scaling? A tale in three parts

Dr. Avian was sure that he had found a formula for intelligence without anything like a human mind, and his program appeared to be working.

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Detective board with crime scene photos, stickers, clues and red thread, closeup

AI’s Not “The Answer” In Our World of Mysteries, Not Puzzles

A focus on AI encourages us to see problems that are really mysteries as puzzles, which makes addressing them much harder

Humans are terrible at crunching data but remarkably good at seeing clues. That’s why we still outmatch our machines in domains where meaning matters.

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White chatbot robot leading robots group on dark bluish reddish background 3D rendering

An Evil Chatbot Clones Itself… Sci-fi or Real Life Threat?

ChatGPT was asked to explain how this might be done. The results were revealing

It’s not impossible but, given technical issues and security protocols, it is much more difficult than the chatbot’s database seemed to be informed about.

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a-phone-screen-shows-a-scary-ai-with-glowing-red-eyes-the-ai-958802832-stockpack-adobestock
A phone screen shows a scary AI with glowing red eyes. The AI looks like a cyborg, and its eyes are full of malicious intent. This image the danger of bad AI, like a virus taking over your phone.

Can Chatbots Really Scheme Against Us? Some Researchers Say Yes

When an industry pro tested ChatGPT, it seemed like the system has faced this question a few times before and has been tweaked and edited well

So CAN a chatbot really scheme? No, but the problem posed is a familiar one: We sometimes see what we need to believe.

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Composite image of word iq test

The Reverse Flynn Effect and the Decline of Intelligence

How our modern world is making us dumber and why it doesn’t have to

A growing body of neuroscience evidence directly challenges the prevailing theory that we are merely flawed computers, to be replaced by machines.

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Multi exposure of brain drawing hologram and us dollars bills and man hands. Ai invest concept

AI Productivity Hype: The New “Cargo Cult Science”?

Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term to describe imaginary scenarios for success based on simple misunderstanding of realities

The tech sector can push AI hype that resembles cargo cult science to its investors because of changes in media resulting from 30 years of the internet.

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