Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryLarge Language Models (LLMs)

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The skill to dissect complex data, recognize patterns, and make logical decisions based on relationships and cause-effect.

Illusions: No, Large Language Models Do Not Understand

A recent New Yorker article is mistaken about this. For one thing, the LLMs have trouble distinguishing between causation and mere correlation

A real-world example of such struggles is the poor performance, in general, of AI-powered mutual funds.

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Courtroom symbolizes law and authority through a judgment gavel

Case Study: How Not to Sue AI for Libel

I personally favor modernizing the civil laws against libel and defamation to take into account the type of injuries that chatbots can inflict.

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A futuristic eco-city with verdant vegetation and a glowing green energy source situated atop a giant computer chip in a detailed urban landscape vision.

Should Christians Harness AI Chatbots As a Force For Good? Part 2

The claims being made for what these bots can do for ministry would lead us into dangerous territory

We need to remember what Christian thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Marshall McLuhan have thought and said about technology-driven utopias.

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Futuristic Scholar teen Girl in School Ambience, generative ai

A Non-Transhumanist Vision for AI in Education

Bill Dembski describes this new approach as amounting to edification rather than enhancement

AI should be used as a way of honing students’ skills and knowledge, helping them learn more effectively than before.

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Woman chained to a laptop, symbolizing internet and social media addiction. Generated by AI

Should Christians Harness AI Chatbots As A Force For Good? Part 1

In response to claims from a Christian ministry, as a Christian software developer, I offer some serious cautions

A technology like generative AI, which deceives us by feeling person-like, harms us in ways that are categorically different from any other.

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Will Rogers

Scaling Up is Not Going to Make Large Language Models Intelligent

ChatGPT-5 misunderstood the jab in a simple Will Rogers joke five out of six times

Bigger data centers are not going to change the harsh reality that LLMs are prone to generating unreliable blather.

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Chat GPT Artificial Intelligence copy writing bot by Open AI. Robot for student homework, education.

Large Language Models: Inconsistent Because They’re Unintelligent

Here’s what happened when I tested popular LLMs on student exercise questions I have been using for over fifty years

Claims that an LLM is intelligent don’t square with the fact that it may answer a question one way and, a few seconds later, simply contradict itself.

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AIdriven chatbots assisting customer service, automated communication, concept

Will Reliance on AI Mean a Vast Drop in New Knowledge Production?

Dependence on AI assistants, for example, was found to greatly reduce discussion among peers, where new ideas are offered and evaluated

Ultimately, the AI knowledge system will be enriched or impoverished by human decisions, not by discovering a superintelligence.

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Neural network of a dog brain with big data and artificial intelligence circuit board in the head of a blue canine, outlining concepts of a digital brain, computer Generative AI stock illustration

Fearing the Terminator: Does Current Tech Warrant the Doomsaying?

People will worry less if they understand why the text generation programs not only do not think but in fact cannot think

Bottom line: Text generative AIs do not capture meaning. They capture relationships which approximate meaning well enough to be useful.

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Cybersecurity big data, robots ai innovation idea

Fearing the Terminator, Missing the Obvious

In Part 1 of my review of the new AI Doom book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, we look at how the authors first developed the underlying idea

By 2020, authors Yudlowsky and Soares were already Doomers but the rapid success of ChatGPT and similar models heightened their worries.

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Blue and purple neon 3d sphere of gradient waves and glowing particles. Abstract technology concept, Artificial Intelligence, engineering, big data, and innovations. Vibrant futuristic sphere.

Different Bubbles, Different Methods of Detection: What of AI?

Circular financing is one of the signs. Even the media are beginning to catch on

Circular financing is the last gasp for OpenAI and the cloud services. They need it to maintain the mirage of an economic boom despite big losses and small revenues for AI software.

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Some band-aids on a brown table

Verify, Then Trust: the Human Fixes That Make LLMs Work

Here are some examples of fixes that programmers and other workers have applied over time to large language model (LLM) bloopers

I suspect there will never be enough Band-Aids to stop all of the bleeding. So instead of “Trust but verify,” I recommend “Verify, then trust.”

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Data-driven AI and analytics concept with neural networks, machine learning, and big data stream. Illustrate data flow technology and science for predictive systems, ideal for innovation and business.

Intelligence Demands More than Pressing a Lever to Obtain Water

I continue to be astonished by how willing people are to assume that LLMs are intelligent because they give glib, confident answers

Human trainers can nudge LLMs to give good answers for specific questions but this training doesn’t prepare them for subtle variations.

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Technology Digital Data Abstract Background, Data Analysis and Access to Digital Data, Digital Cyberspace with Particles and Digital Data Network Connections, 3D Rendering

AI Will Keep Hallucinating, says OpenAI

AI will always need human guidance.

LLMs, while they seem to offer confident answers, cannot reflect on what they’re generating and so can’t wisely discern truth from falsehood.

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pink piggy bank floats on water drowning about to sink concept of investment failure budget issue financial risk debt problem bankruptcy economy crisis.stock photo, created with generative ai

Why OpenAI Will Collapse: LLMs Are Not Economical

If a model is not refreshed every few months, it quickly turns from a helpful assistant into a debt generation machine with outdated knowledge

Companies can apply OpenAI’s models to a limited set of data and questions, creating a smaller model that is cheaper to train, update, and run.

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A conceptual artwork showcasing a robot in prayer, symbolizing faith, spirituality, and worship in a dark room with fire in the background.

Unexpected: ChatGPT and the Return of God

Scott Ventureyra talks about ChatGPT and other large language models (chatbots )AI in the unlikely role of unexpected apologists for Christianity

Far from heralding a coming secular triumph over God, the verbal output of chatbots suggests that, generally, people conclude that God must in fact exist.

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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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Cyberneticpunk Concept: Robot Grasping the Globe in Dark Ambiance. world technology security system and business industry concepts. machine learning

And Sci Fi Thought AI Was Going To… Take Over?

Here are some non-hype news briefs from the world of the supposed AI takeover that could help us separate fact from fiction

From recent news: ● “AI Adoption Rate Trending Down for Large Companies” Down? The US Census Bureau conducts a biweekly survey of 1.2 million firms, and one question is whether a business has used AI tools such as machine learning, natural language processing, virtual agents or voice recognition to help produce goods or services in the past two weeks. Recent data by firm size shows that AI adoption has been declining among companies with more than 250 employees, see chart below. Torsten Sløk, Apollo Chief Economist, September 7, 2025 Apollo is a coaching firm for investors. Currently, unemployment is up but it’s still more likely to be due to traditional issues than “A hot bot got my slot!” However, some Read More ›

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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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