
CategoryNatural Intelligence


If Computers Thought Like Fruit Flies, They Could Do More
But even with more sophisticated buzz, there remain "non-computable" things that a computer cannot be programmed to thinkRecently, researchers discovered that fruit flies use a filter similar to a computer algorithm to assess the odors that help them find fruit, only the flies’ tools are more sophisticated: When a fly smells an odor, the fly needs to quickly figure out if it has smelled the odor before, to determine if the odor is new and something it should pay attention to,” says Saket Navlakha, an assistant professor in Salk’s Integrative Biology Laboratory. “In computer science, this is an important task called novelty detection. Computers use a Bloom filter for that, Navlakha, an integrative biologist, explains: When a search engine such as Google crawls the Web, it needs to know whether a website it comes across has previously Read More ›

How is Human Language Different from Animal Signals?
What do we need from language that we cannot get from signals alone?
That Plant Is Not a Cyborg
Or a robot. The MIT researcher's underlying idea is a good one but let’s not “plant” mistaken ideas
Stephen Hawking and the AI Apocalypse
Can doomsday headlines, chasing fame, stand in for deep knowledge of a subject?
Dogs Are Not as Intelligent as Seals?
That doesn't sound right to you? Putting aside the hoopla around IQ tests for furries and flipperies, there is a serious science question about what “intelligence” really is
Can Plants Be as Smart as Animals?
Seeking to thrive and grow, plants communicate extensively, without a mind or a brainNone of the plants' extensive "social life" requires reason, emotion, value systems, mind, consciousness, or a sense of self. It requires only that the plant, like an animal, seek to continue its highly organized existence. But plants' ability to process information for that purpose gives pause for thought.
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Can the Air Force Create Thinking Planes?
Smart drones? They are working on general artificial intelligence (GAI)
How the KGB Found CIA Agents
An illustration of complex, specified information (CSI) in the world of foreign intelligence agencies
Yes, Even Lizards Can Be Smart
If you catch them at the right time. But can we give machines what the lizard has by nature?
Crows Can Be as Smart as Apes
But they have quite different brains. The intelligence doesn't seem to reside in the details of the mechanism
The “superintelligent AI myth”
The problem that even the skeptical Deep Learning researcher left out
Brains are not billions of little computers
Despite the hype. Also, life forms are not machines and neurons are not neural networks
Software pioneer says general superhuman artificial intelligence is very unlikely
The concept, he argues, shows a lack of understanding of the nature of intelligence
Meet the everyday people behind AI
Not famous, not lone geniuses, usually not even well-paid. Without them, ambitious systems would gather dust.
Human intelligence as a halting oracle
Jonathan Bartlett proposes to model the human mind as a halting oracle
Does information theory support design in nature?
William Dembski makes a convincing case, using accepted information theory principles relevant to computer science
George Gilder explains what’s wrong with “Google Marxism”
In discussion with Mark Levin, host of Life, Liberty & Levin
Do we just imagine design in nature?
Or is seeing design fundamental to discovering and using nature’s secrets?