Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryCreativity

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Leather dice cup and dice on the table, rolling all sixes with 5 dice representing gambling and luck

The Monday Micro Softy 10: The Monte Hall Problem

In this case, it comes down to: How badly do you want a goat in your life?
Probability problems typically come down to analyzing the choices carefully and picking the most promising one. Read More ›
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Big ideas. Illuminated light bulb among the rest of the unlit bulbs.

Only in America

My discussion on this week’s podcast with Major General Bobby Hollingsworth (ret.) prompts a look at some of the many people that America has freed to be their best
Despite our different faiths, my Muslim colleague Mohamed El-Sharkawi was a steadfast ally and when his mosque was defaced post 9-11, Christians protected it. Read More ›
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Machine learning , artificial intelligence, ai, deep learning blockchain neural network concept.

The Man Behind the First Billion-Dollar AI Business

Robert Hecht-Nielsen (1947‒2019) was a significant figure in the second wave of AI. His company specialized in fraud detection
He led a full life marked by remarkable achievements but he also had a near-death experience that transformed him spiritually. Read More ›
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White pickup truck driving down dusty dirt road with fall leaves and dust behind

Micro Softy 5: The Puzzle of Claude and Chloe’s Two Kids

Also, here’s the answer to the puzzle of how, twelve years earlier, Claude escaped the trap Clifton Clowers set for him, so he could marry Chloe
Puzzle: We learn that one of Claude and Chloe's two children is a boy. With a 50–50 ratio, what chance is there that the other child is a boy too? Read More ›
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Photorealistic Church celebration in small country church with wooden pews, children holding baskets

Monday Micro Softy 4: Claude King Bests Clifton Clowers

Clowers offers Claude two slips of paper to choose from on a blind choice: marriage or death...
Claude's sweetheart Chloe warns him that, in reality, both slips say "death." He says never mind. So how did he escape death and marry her? Read More ›
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Northern woodland scenery, viewed from above, with green pine forest and dark spruce trees on mountain hills.

Monday Micro Softy 3: The Wolverton Mountain Puzzle

Here’s the answer to Dead President’s Club as well — and smart STEM people often DON'T get that one right

Mind Matters News is pleased to offer a new series, “Monday Micro Softies,” from our director, Robert J. Marks, a series of puzzles that illustrate the ways of thinking needed in the computer industry today. – Eds. Here’s today’s puzzle, in honor of Claude King, followed by the solution to last Monday’s puzzle, The Dead Presidents Club. In 1962, King recorded the song Wolverton Mountain. It’s the story of Claude’s love of Clifton Clowers’ daughter — we’ll call her Chloe — who lives on the top of Wolverton Mountain. (Listen here.) It’s a catchy tune. Here’s a puzzle augmenting the song’s story: Claude starts climbing to the top of Wolverton Mountain at 6 AM. There is only one road, and Read More ›

robot-hand-typing-on-the-computer-the-concept-of-artificial-intelligence-replacing-a-human-in-dealing-with-another-human-ai-generative-stockpack-adobe-stock
Robot hand typing on the computer. The concept of artificial intelligence replacing a human in dealing with another human. Ai generative

Bill Dembski: When a Chatbot Tried Improving on a Literary Genius

If what matters is computer engineering and a supermassive databank, the chatbot should improve on the masters, right?
Information theorist Dembski thinks that the statistical averages that bots depend on mean they will necessarily regress to the mean and result in mediocrity. Read More ›
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Scales of Justice in the dark Court Hall. Law concept of Judiciary, Jurisprudence and Justice. Copy space. Based on Generative AI

Jason Allen’s Battle With AI Copyright Law

There is no doubt that this commitment warrants a copyright. Allen used Midjourney as a tool and not as the source of his creativity.
The only solution I can see to the AI copyright problem is to verify that numerous highly detailed prompts were used to create an image. Read More ›
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Smart robotic farmers concept, robot farmers, Agriculture technology, Farm automation.

Computer Prof: Handing Off Risky Operations to AI Would Be Stupid

When everything went wrong in Space Odyssey 2001, the cause was faulty programming, not the computer deciding to take over, he says.
When everything went wrong in Space Odyssey 2001, the cause was faulty programming, not the computer deciding to take over, he says. Read More ›
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Chatbot assistant, Ai Artificial Intelligence

Computer ‘Creativity’ Is Simply Digital Plagiarism

One outcome is many lawsuits against generative AI companies whose programs snatch and use copyrighted material
As radio host Mark Davis put it recently, “ultimately everything AI does is go in search of something that some human being said or wrote sometime.” Read More ›
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collapsed building

AI Going MAD? The Model Collapse Problem Gets More Attention Now

The problem is that the AI can't generate anything new on its own and the old stuff, endlessly recycled at high speeds, begins to erode
If human involvement is minimized, this hard limit will probably come up time and again. Computation is not creativity. Read More ›
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Text written with a vintage typewriter -  That's my story

How Do Writers Get Paid in an Age When Chatbots “Write” Things?

Are lawsuits against Big Tech really the answer? Much of the territory is uncharted
A few Big Tech players control the chatbot market. Could bargaining with them for something like Public Lending Right resolve the writers' issues? Read More ›
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hacker cat working job profession illustration generative ai

Generative AI Is Creating a Copyright Crisis for Artists

How does an artist assert copyright when her image was only one of many used to create a new image? How does she make a living if she can’t?
AI companies could be required to record images’ origin and compensate copyright holders. But as Robert J. Marks notes, end users might then have to pay. Read More ›
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Hand touching digital chatbot for provide access to information and data in online network, robot application and global connection, AI, Artificial intelligence, innovation and technology.

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
An LLM generating a connection new to us, is not acting creatively. It is throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what we let stick. Read More ›
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Robot hand displays blue digital interface, wearing blue suit and helmet.

How Materialism Handicaps Us in Understanding AI’s Limits

Sabine Hossenfelder acknowledges AI’s limits, yet she is convinced that it will become conscious
Such a position is not something the materialist derives from the evidence; it is imposed by the ideology. Read More ›
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Lightbulb eureka moment with Impactful and inspiring artistic colourful explosion of paint energy

Programmers: Why Materialism Can’t Explain Human Creativity

Eric Holloway and Robert Marks explain why it’s unlikely that the mind that enables human creativity is merely the product of animal evolution
The total space-time information capacity of the universe falls significantly short of the ability to generate meaningful text of only a few hundred letters. Read More ›
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cute artificial intelligence robot with notebook

Psychology Researchers: AI Showed Imitation, Not Innovation

Testing children and adults against chatbots, the researchers found that the chatbots could match things up but struggled to solve problems on their own
As computer engineering prof Robert J. Marks puts it, AI is no more creative than a pencil. You can use it like a pencil — but the creativity comes from you. Read More ›
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An artificial intelligence robot writer creating generative AI writing

Can AI Write Screenplays for Films You’d Want to See?

That issue was the heart of the Hollywood writers’ strike. How was it resolved? Or WAS it resolved?
AI can replace screenwriters only if you are content to see the same-old same-old every day forever. That’s true no matter who owns the technology. Read More ›
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Uroboros, snake coiled in a ring, biting its tail. Engraving sketch scratch board imitation sepia.

Model Collapse: AI Chatbots Are Eating Their Own Tails

The problem is fundamental to how they operate. Without new human input, their output starts to decay
Meanwhile, organizations that laid off writers and editors to save money are finding that they can’t just program creativity or common sense into machines. Read More ›