Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryArts & Culture

Daft Punk headset
Illustration of a Futuristic cyber helmet inspired by music group Daft Punk . Cyberspace Augmented Reality. , Generative AI
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Author
News
Date
April 6, 2023
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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Daft Punk and Being Human After All

Former member said AI concerns contributed in part to the band's breakup
News
April 6, 2023
2
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Legendary electronic pop duo Daft Punk split ways two years ago after decades of collaboration and are esteemed as pioneers in the creative ways they infused their music with cutting edge sonic technology. However, in a recent interview, ex-member Thomas Bangalter said that artificial intelligence contributed in part to the band’s separation. Per a report from Futurism, Bangalter said, We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can. We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology. -NOOR AL-SIBAI, Daft Punk Says They Broke Up Partially Over Fear of AI (futurism.com) The pop duo notoriously dressed up in robotic garb during their musical Read More ›

run down hospital
Interior of an abandoned hospital corridor. Generative AI
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
April 5, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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The Last of Us, Episode 9

Getting to the central moral question of the entire series
Gary Varner
April 5, 2023
8
Arts & Culture

The episode begins with another flashback, showing how Ellie was born. Then, we see that Joel and Ellie have finally reached Salt Lake City, and once there, the writers retell some of the classic scenes from the game. During these scenes, it becomes evident that the two characters are much closer now. I’d say the writers did manage to successfully transition Joel and Ellie from an adversarial partnership to a father-daughter like relationship. Before long; however, the two are disoriented by a flash grenade, and Joel is knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he sees Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, standing in a doorway with armed guards around her. They made it to the medical facility after all, but Read More ›

library with arches
Custom library
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post
Author
Peter Biles
Date
April 4, 2023
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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From One Author to an AI

What might John Steinbeck think of AI writing a novel?
Peter Biles
April 4, 2023
4
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

John Steinbeck was among the most prominent literary figures of the twentieth century, responsible for works such as The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Pearl. East of Eden, arguably his best work, is a sprawling novel about two families in the Salinas Valley in California and is often interpreted as a modern-day retelling of the book of Genesis, particularly the story of Cain and Abel. If we were to ask Steinbeck today about AI’s ability to write a good novel, what might the celebrated writer say? Well, an interview with Steinbeck from Paris Review, while it doesn’t have anything to do with computers or artificial intelligence, does reveal a significant aspect of Steinbeck’s own philosophy of writing Read More ›

snow capped forests
Snow capped forest in the Pyrenees
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Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 31, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Science Fiction
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The Last of Us, Episodes 7 & 8

Another flashback for the critics followed by cannibalism
Gary Varner
March 31, 2023
7
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

To be blunt, it’s probably best to merge the reviews of episodes seven and eight because episode seven is a complete waste of time. Basically, Ellie moves Joel to an abandoned house and tries to take care of him. He tells her she needs to go back to Tommy’s and let him die, and she almost does it, but then she has a flashback. During the commentary for episode seven, the writers mention that they wanted to make a connection between this flashback and Ellie’s decision to save Joel. But I think the truth is they were more interested in devoting another episode to fanservice for the critics. In this flashback, Ellie remembers Riley, her friend who was attacked with Read More ›

jinx from arcane
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Author
Peter Biles
Date
March 30, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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The Moral Genius of Arcane

The show reveals how pursuing knowledge for the sake of greater manipulation, power, and control can open the floodgates of chaos
Peter Biles
March 30, 2023
4
Arts & Culture

The 2021 show Arcane, based on the video game League of Legends, is fantastic. The animation style, writing, and world-building all merit its 100 percent scored rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Apart from its entertainment value, which is formidable, Arcane explores the pertinent themes of power, progress, and the promises and pitfalls of technological advancement. It does this without heavy-handedness, “instructing by delighting,” in the words of C.S. Lewis. A Powerful Civilization and a Chaotic Underworld The story takes place in the utopian city of Piltover, which prides itself on its innovations in science, technology, and infrastructure. On the lower edges of the city lies the unruly Zaun, an oppressed underworld overrun with crime and an addictive drug called “Shimmer.” The Read More ›

the lion
Vienna - lion for national library
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post
Author
Peter Biles
Date
March 28, 2023
Categorized
Arts & Culture, Technocracy
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Michael Aeschliman on C.S. Lewis and Scientism

Aeschliman observes how technological progress and scientific mastery, when it isn't wedded with virtue and moral knowledge, wreaks havoc
Peter Biles
March 28, 2023
5
Arts & Culture, Technocracy

Michael D. Aeschliman first wrote The Restoration of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism in 1983. It was praised as a remarkable achievement upon its arrival by eminent writers and thinkers like Russell Kirk, Malcolm Muggeridge, and George Gilder. Discovery Institute Press published an expanded and updated edition of the book in 2019, and a recent podcast episode featuring Aeschliman piqued my own interest in the book. Aeschliman writes on the advent of “scientism,” the belief that science is the only viable path to knowledge and should therefore be esteemed above all other disciplines. Such a view leads to the reckless moral relativism and “will to power” that arguably brought about the bloodbaths of the twentieth century, Read More ›

wyoming glory
Grand Tetons peak at sunrise with snake river overlook in Wyoming, US
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 25, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Science Fiction
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The Last of Us, Episode 6

A tale of zombies and...communism?
Gary Varner
March 25, 2023
10
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Episode six starts out strong. We meet an elderly couple who has been living alone in Wyoming. Joel and Ellie break into their cabin and ask for directions in the rudest way possible—at gun point—which is a little over the top, and even the actors playing the couple seem to know it. As Joel sits beside the old pair, holding a gun and acting dour, the elderly man chats with him, sporting a bemused grin. Joel and Ellie get the directions they need and soon come across a group of men and women on horseback who hold them at gunpoint and check to see if they’re infected. Once it becomes clear that Joel and Ellie are fine, the riders ask Read More ›

surface of venus
The surface of Venus, the irregularities of the planet. Elements of this image furnished by NASA
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post
Author
Peter Biles
Date
March 23, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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C.S. Lewis and Science Fiction

Sci-fi can reveal that you don't necessarily need to visit Mars to find the bizarre and beautiful
Peter Biles
March 23, 2023
4
Arts & Culture

The 20th-century intellectual, novelist, poet, and popular theologian C.S. Lewis was a rare bird. He spent most of his life embedded in the academic world, to which he contributed greatly, but was also a lover of fairy tales and the dystopian. His long-held affection for fantasy and science fiction led him to write some of the most popular fictional works in recent memory, most notably The Chronicles of Narnia and what’s commonly known as the “space trilogy,” though Lewis himself objected to the term “space” as an adequate descriptor of what he viewed as a vibrant and meaningful cosmos. In a more obscure Lewis title, Of Other Worlds, Lewis writes of his appreciation for science fiction and what makes the Read More ›

underground tunnel
Generative AI illustration of underground sewer tunnel
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 22, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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The Last of Us, Episode 5

The show is back on track and improving
Gary Varner
March 22, 2023
10
Arts & Culture

At the end of Episode four, Joel was being held a gunpoint by a mysterious child. We also saw that Ellie was being held at gunpoint by another man as well, but before episode five reveals what has become of them, the writers first give us a flashback, explaining how the child holding Joel at gunpoint, whose name turns out to be Sam, and the man holding Ellie at gunpoint, Henry, the same Henry Kathleen has been chasing, came to find Joel and Ellie in the first place. The two brothers were on the run after FEDRA fell to Kathleen’s resistance movement. Henry was an informant for FEDRA, and he snitched on Kathleen’s brother, who was the former leader of Read More ›

looking at art
Rear view of a guy in his 30s looking at an art exhibition
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News
Date
March 21, 2023
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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Artists and Writers Unite Against AI

New Guardian article highlights the artists and writers pushing back against AI
News
March 21, 2023
2
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

A new article from The Guardian covers the struggle of artists, writers, and other “creatives” who are pushing back against AI systems like Midjourney and ChatGPT, which they purport is starting to replace their viability. Betsy Reed writes, Poetry may still be a hard nut for AI to crack convincingly, but among the first to face a genuine threat to their livelihoods are photographers and designers. Generative software can produce images at the touch of the button, while sites like the popular NightCafe make “original”, data-derived artwork in response to a few simple verbal prompts. The first line of defence is a growing movement of visual artists and image agencies who are now “opting out” of allowing their work to Read More ›

apocalyptic city
Concept art illustration of post-apocalyptic New York city
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 18, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Science Fiction
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The Last of Us, Episode 4

After a derailing of the narrative, the actual plot makes a comeback
Gary Varner
March 18, 2023
6
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

After a tough episode three, The Last of Us decides to return to the plot, and we see the writing quality improve somewhat. We pick up with Joel and Ellie driving down the road, and to be candid, the scenes are interesting. There was, however, one giant plot hole during this sequence I couldn’t ignore. It’s a little thing, but as someone who grew up in Missouri, I found it hilarious. So, while they are driving along, they come across a herd of bison. The subtext behind the camera shot is painfully obvious, “Now that man is gone, the buffalo have returned. Nature is healing!” Of course, what the camera crew failed to notice, or at least, what they were Read More ›

woman reading book
a woman is reading a book and holding coffee
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News
Date
March 17, 2023
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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ChatGPT and Personal Consciousness

AI vs. the human voice in literature and the arts
News
March 17, 2023
2
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

This week, Peter Biles, Writer & Editor for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, wrote a piece for Salvo on ChatGPT and the uniqueness of the human voice in literature and the arts. Biles cites Christina Bieber Lake, professor of English at Wheaton College, from her book Beyond the Story: American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism. Bieber Lake pushes back against the reductionistic worldview of Darwinistic materialism, appealing to the personal nature of the human being and the relationships we share together. Since a computer fails to practice personal consciousness, it also fails to create meaningful literature, which always involves two persons––one person speaking to another. Biles also cites Robert J. Marks’s essential book on the topic Read More ›

wheelchair-for-physical-assistance-at-nursing-home-close-up-generative-ai-stockpack-adobe-stock
wheelchair for physical assistance at nursing home, close up. Generative AI
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 16, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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The Last of Us, Episode 3 (Part 3)

Romanticizing a murder-suicide distracts us from the story and suggests an approval of euthanasia
Gary Varner
March 16, 2023
7
Arts & Culture

In the previous review, we discussed the love story of Bill and Frank, and how it must’ve only been written to appease the critics because, while it stirred some controversy, it contributed nothing to the plot. We started out following Joel and Ellie across the countryside, but then, we were unexpectedly forced to watch an approximately forty-minute flashback that literally showed Bill and Frank’s entire cliché and boring life together. And before we can return to the real story, we must see how the two meet their untimely end. This final sequence starts out with Bill getting into a gunfight with some raiders who are all dying horribly at the hands of Bill’s various traps. At first, Bill seems to Read More ›

golden-ring-and-mountains-digital-art-3d-render-stockpack-adobe-stock
Golden Ring and Mountains Digital Art 3D Render
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Author
Peter Biles
Date
March 15, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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Don’t Turn The Lord of the Rings into Star Wars

When you have something as good as the world of Middle Earth, it becomes ever easier to injure the original vision and trade quality for commercial success
Peter Biles
March 15, 2023
5
Arts & Culture

Amazon’s The Rings of Power, which is based on the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, was an ambitious and expensive project that arguably provided little more than a surface-level and underdeveloped interpretation of Middle Earth and its characters. The show, while entertaining and with its strengths, exemplified a flaw many fans feared: commercializing Tolkien inevitably leads to compromise. Even Peter Jackson’s highly praised rendition of the fantasy epic has its critics, including Tolkien’s son and heir of the family estate, Christopher. The show was visually stunning but had some storytelling issues. For one, we don’t ever get a sense of Middle Earth’s size. Characters pop in and out of different places as if it’s a five-minute Read More ›

looking-upward-the-sky-stockpack-adobe-stock
looking upward the sky
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 15, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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The Last of Us, Episode 3 (Part 2)

Why were we subjected to this episode if it wasn’t going to contribute to the narrative?
Gary Varner
March 15, 2023
6
Arts & Culture

Last time, we discussed how episode three started out relatively strong then unexpectedly shifted to another story altogether. It’s important to note that we are not watching a ten-minute flashback or some b-plot involving a couple of supporting characters. Almost all of the episode is devoted to Bill and Frank, and frankly, their story goes nowhere. As I mentioned before, the subject of this random entry into the series is Bill and Frank’s romantic relationship, and given the fact that this little deviation from the source material contributes nothing to the plot as a whole, it is strongly suspected that the only reason the writers chose to tell this story was to gain the admiration of critics who share their Read More ›

wallpaper-of-cordyceps-fungi-realistic-detail-photo-macro-illustration-like-the-movie-the-last-of-us-stockpack-adobe-stock
Wallpaper of cordyceps fungi, realistic detail photo macro, illustration, like the movie the last of us,
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 13, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Science Fiction
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The Last of Us, Episode 3 (Part I)

This episode serves as a bad omen when it comes to writers’ willingness to stick to the script
Gary Varner
March 13, 2023
6
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

In episode two, Tess sacrifices herself after being bitten, and in episode three, we find Joel and Ellie grieving over her death. This scene is another example of the actors overplaying the anger when the tone should be more somber. Joel is hesitant to talk to Ellie until Ellie insists that Tess’s death wasn’t her fault, and that Joel and Tess made their own choices. Now, there isn’t anything wrong with the scene necessarily, but in the first two episodes, it’s already apparent that the HBO adaptation is having a difficult time establishing the father-daughter dynamic between Ellie and Joel that the game is known for. This scene only adds to that problem. However, this might not be an issue Read More ›

hands-stockpack-adobe-stock
hands
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post
Author
Peter Biles
Date
March 10, 2023
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Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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Observing and Communing

What human art and literature do that AI can't
Peter Biles
March 10, 2023
5
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

AI image generators like Midjourney or DALL-E are generally adept at capturing the accuracy of the human form. The concerns over copyright, job infringement, and general degradation of the visual arts via such AI are ongoing concerns for many artists and practitioners. However, a new New Yorker article by Kyle Chayka identifies a noticeable flaw in AI artwork: human hands. Missing the Big Picture Chayka begins by recalling an art class where he was asked to draw his own hand. It’s an assignment for beginners, and as behooves a novice, tempts the artist to focus more on the specific contours of the hand instead of the overall structure and form. The forest gets lost in the trees, so to speak. Read More ›

man-and-girl-in-post-apocalyptic-city-the-last-of-us-style-generative-ai-stockpack-adobe-stock
Man and girl in post apocalyptic city. The last of us style. Generative AI.
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post
Author
Gary Varner
Date
March 4, 2023
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Arts & Culture, Science Fiction
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The Last of Us Review: Episode 2

A rather slow episode despite the sonar zombies
Gary Varner
March 4, 2023
6
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Last time, we looked at the first episode of The Last of Us and talked about how it was well written, but if you are aware of the controversy surrounding this game and its sequel, then you know bad things are on the horizon. Once we reach episode two, the writing quality drops a little but not much. It’s still pretty good, at least, when it’s consistent with the source material. Ellie wakes up to find Joel and Tess staring at her with a loaded gun. Her guardians are having a hard time believing that she is not infected with the virus despite the fact that her wound has healed. There is a brief debate about whether or not to Read More ›

book-drop-off-zone-stockpack-adobe-stock
Book drop-off zone
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Author
News
Date
March 1, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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Wesley J. Smith on Why You Should Read Dean Koontz

The bestselling novelist's work is both entertaining and profoundly insightful into our cultural moment
News
March 1, 2023
2
Arts & Culture

Wesley J. Smith, Chair of Discovery Institute’s Center for Human Exceptionalism, wrote an article praising the prolific literature of his friend Dean Koontz, whose books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide. Smith finds Koontz both a unique writer and a remarkable person with a powerful story of redemption. Born in poverty in Pennsylvania under the hand of an abusive father, Koontz persevered and pursued novel writing with the help of his wife’s encouragement. The rest is history. Through daily discipline, keen research, and profound imagination, Koontz has written dozens of bestsellers. First and foremost, his books entertain and delight. In addition, however, they deliver their fair share of social commentary and critique. Much of his work explores the Read More ›

cyborg eye
Human android cyborg eye futuristic control protection personal internet security access.Concept robot dna system, future scientific technology innovation science. Blue polygonal vector
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post
Author
Peter Biles
Date
February 28, 2023
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Arts & Culture
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Klara and the Sun: A Review

The sci-fi bestseller asks us: can machines become humans?
Peter Biles
February 28, 2023
5
Arts & Culture

Klara and the Sun is novelist Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, a dystopian story told through the lens of an “artificial friend” (AF) named Klara. Ishiguro is known for his provocative speculative fiction, including the novels Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day. Klara and the Sun similarly alludes to a dark, post-industrial, futuristic world, but it is told through the innocent lens of an artificial mind, highlighting the vestiges of human behavior and brokenness in ways that perhaps an “ordinary” narrator might not be able to manage. The novel starts out with Klara on display in a store waiting to be purchased. Eventually, she’s chosen by a girl named Josie and her mother, and thus begins her Read More ›