Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryBusiness and Finance

Piggy Bank save money investment

Ken Fisher: Recession Is Not “Bound To” Happen

The COSM speaker also claims to dislike philanthropy but…
People will mainly remember Fisher's prediction if it doesn’t come true. If it does come true, they will be too busy spending their earnings to notice. The interesting part is, what underlies it. Read More ›
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Jay Richards Talks Business with Bill Walton

Richards's book, "Money, Greed, and God" is newly reissued in a 10th anniversary edition
Business studies prof and philosopher Jay Richards argues that we can;t separate economic and social issues. A vibrant market economy, vibrant economic growth requires a solid foundation in family, civil society, rule of law and religion. Read More ›
Superior Artificial Intelligence Wining Chess Concept

Confirmed: DeepMind’s Deepest Mind Is on Leave

The chess champ computer system just never made money
Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman is a philosopher and social justice activist who hoped to use the technology for fundamental transformations. But his AI ethics board lasted about seven days at Google. Read More ›
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What Others Are Saying About the New Google Insider’s Revelations

The documents' authenticity is not in dispute. What to do about them is another matter
Perhaps we cannot have a realistic discussion of the problems Google.gov creates unless we start with a willingness to pay for search engine services. That allows us to bargain as equals with respect to terms. Read More ›
Photo by Daniel Olah

Is Google a Cult? Or Does It Just Act That Way?

Project Veritas announces that a new rebel Googler has sent nearly 1000 documents on algorithm bias to the DOJ

While we prepare a news story on Zach Vorhies' revelations, it may be worth asking why one of the world’s largest companies has developed what appears to be the atmosphere of a political cult.

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A Silicon Valley Insider Asks the Awkward Questions

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, speaking at COSM in October, has a history of challenging Valley orthodoxies

His question, “How can Google use the rhetoric of ‘borderless’ benefits to justify working with the country whose ‘Great Firewall’ has imposed a border on the internet itself?”, is timely. China’s government uses high tech for, among other things, sophisticated racial profiling.

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4er Golf flight

The Paradox of Luck and Skill

Why did Shane Lowry win the British Open golf championship? Because someone had to

In any competition including academic tests, athletic events, and company management where there is an element of luck that causes performances to be an imperfect measure of ability, there is an important difference between competitions among people with high ability and competitions among people of lesser ability.

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Why Was IBM Watson a Flop in Medicine?

Robert J. Marks and Gary S. Smith discuss how the AI couldn’t identify which information in the tsunami of medical literature actually MATTERED

Last year, the IBM Health Initiative laid off a number of people, seemingly due to market disillusionment with the product.

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Photo by Erik Mclean
Supreme money gun

Why Is DeepMind In Deep Water Financially?

Market analysts are wondering if the money is as smart as the machine

In an all-out botwar with the other tech Bigs, DeepMind could simply be paying top minds not to work for the competition while readying AI tools that pay better than winning at board games. Maybe.

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Self-driving Cars: Following the Money up a Cooling Trail

The market for lithium for electric car batteries is slowing

One way we can assess entrepreneurs’ claims (think Elon Musk) is to ask, what physical components does the product require and how is the market responding?

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Even Elon Musk Can’t Get a Robotaxi These Days

His recent earnings call makes clear that few think his promised million-taxi fleet is real-world
I get the feeling that even Musk's faithful followers are beginning to doubt the hype and are instead focusing on the core business aspects, the questions Musk dismissed last year as boring. Read More ›
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George Gilder talking with Peter Robinson at the Hoover Institution

George Gilder on the Real-Life Prospects — and Limits — of AI

Gilder, who is organizing the COSM conference in Bellevue, Washington, in October, clears the fog about “the cloud”

The “cloud” of cloud computing, that Gilder predicted, is things, not ideas. Thus it is subject to the limits of things, as opposed to the limits of ideas. It’s reasonable to ask where that limit is. It is probably both a question and an answer that we can understand.

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Car top taxi sign

Even Uber didn’t believe in Uber’s self-driving taxis

We found that out after Google’s Waymo sued the company

Optimism is not driving the recent collaboration and corporate consolidation in the self-driving car industry. Rather, their retrenchment is protection against an uncertain future.

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Lady obstructs view of her face with her hands

You Think You Have Nothing To Hide?

Then why are Big Tech moguls making billions from what you and others tell them?

The bottom line is this: if you think you don’t have anything to hide, then you don’t understand how the modern data economy really works, nor the impact of being caught in a riptide of public opinion.

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都市と技術

Will Money Be “Real” in an Information Society?

Now that Facebook is proposing Libra, a cryptocurrency, this might be a good time to ask

Many of us know cryptocurrencies only from passing headline news. Yet thoughtful people argue that such currencies will help shape an information society. Why?

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Gold city Zoltan Kovacs 270474 at Unsplash

Could Huge Chunks of Asteroid Gold Wreck Our Economy?

16 Psyche’s gold illustrates how AI affects jobs. Not the way many think…

“By lowering the price of gold, it would create new, currently nonexistent, markets for other uses of gold,” says Jay Richards. In the same way, AI creates new, currently nonexistent, markets for human time and creativity.

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Self driving car on a road. Autonomous vehicle. Inside view.

Elon Musk: You Are Liable for My Malfunctioning Code!

He hopes to put the blame for self-driving mishaps in parking lots on customers

At Mind Matters News, we have criticized his approach on numerous grounds. One problem that keeps getting left out is, who assumes moral responsibility and legal liability for self-driving vehicles?

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COSM: George Gilder Hosts Top Tech Guys, To Ask, Where Is All This Going?

Are machines replacing or helping us and how will we know the difference?

The October 23-25 conference is aimed at CEOs, CTOs, and CIOs, investors, researchers, technologists, and anyone for whom the $950 Early Adopter Rate (before July 23) would be a good investment in their future.

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Facebook Building Cryptocurrency-Based Payments System - 3D Rendering

Facebook “Likes” Cryptocurrency

We asked Jonathan Bartlett, what the new coin, Libra, means for Facebook? For crypto?

Avoiding having to judge between currencies "solves a political problem for Facebook, but I don't see that it solves problems for anyone else," Bartlett says.

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Tap-Tap Busse, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Haiti Calling … Reaching Out, Touching the World

Baylor Engineering prof Brian Thomas has been helping Haitians establish businesses to recharge cell phones, using solar panels

In Haiti, 40% of the population (eleven million) still depends on subsistence agriculture. But cell phones allow them to leapfrog many traditional stages of technological development.

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