Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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person-uses-laptop-interacting-with-ai-virtual-assistant-ai-1133554305-stockpack-adobestock
Person uses laptop interacting with AI virtual assistant. AI head graphic overlay laptop keyboard. Concept of AI prompt engineering, LLM. Person types on keyboard to communicate with virtual

Should We Use Generative AI Chatbots to Spark Our Creativity?

What if we become so disconnected from human ways of knowing that real life relationships, desires, and reality itself begins to shrivel away?
Jeremy Utley uses unmistakably spiritual, almost salvation-like language: epiphanies, transformation. GenAI is a savior, and Utley is a prophet… Read More ›
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Positive cute robot pointing at a space. Copy space, ai generated

Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 Can Deceive and Blackmail

Is AI getting out of control?
In a bizarre twist, Opus threatened to expose a fictional affair if it were to lose its spot to another AI system. Read More ›
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Adorable AI Robot with Neon Glow - Cute Desk Companion Robot for Smart Home Decor - Futuristic Robot Design for Tech-Themed Spaces Neon Robot Design Cute AI Robot Decor Modern Tech Companion

1960s Chatbot Pioneer Was Right to Worry About What He’d Created

AI “companions” may be dumbing us down intellectually and emotionally
MIT’s Joseph Weizenbaum was only one of many pioneers but he saw how readily people came to depend on the bots as if they were real people. Read More ›
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Group of youth absorbed in smartphone screens

LLMs Are Bad at Good Things, Good at Bad Things

LLMs may well become smarter than humans in the near future but not because these chatbots are becoming more intelligent
As people become attached to and dependent on their AI friends, they become less interested in their fellow humans. Read More ›
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Portrait, running and group on a track, exercise and workout goal with motivation, happiness and race. Face, man or women outdoor, run or race for training, fitness and health with wellness and smile

No Mark Zuckerberg, AI ‘Friends’ Are Not Good for Mental Health

Zuckerberg's proposed AI friends will not alleviate the epidemic of loneliness and depression and I can tell you a few reasons why
His solution?: More technology, not less. Meta has made billions of dollars monetizing our attention. Why not monetize our loneliness, too? Read More ›
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Illuminated cityscape on digital network, futuristic scene

The Last Humanist: What the Digital Age Can’t Replace

My review of Superbloom by Nicholas Carr, perhaps the last critic standing, with thoughts on some of his earlier books
Unlike the surveillance capitalism crowd, Carr doesn’t just rail against Big Tech’s designs; he interrogates our willing participation. Read More ›
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Hacker in prison cell. Selective focus. AI generated, human enhanced

Should the Iconic Stanford Prison Experiment Study Be Retracted?

Within six months of the death of the famous sociologist who devised it, long-simmering questions have risen to the surface
Beware of wildly popular sociology that tells us that our public policy preferences are somehow embedded in human nature. Life was never as simple as that. Read More ›
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Love relationship between a human and a robot. The connection of human feelings. Future attitud. female android ciborg robot artificial intelligence, robotization and automatization. Generative AI

Could Robots Be Programmed to Feel Ordinary Love?

The question is a bit more complex than we might at first think, as the British TV series Humans demonstrates
An AI could act out romantic love if software preprogrammed it that way, perhaps via online information. But that isn’t a relationship. There is only one side. Read More ›
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Masculinity - a gigantic and unmovable weight chained to a vulnerable and suffering person in pain, misery and helplessness. Cold and tragic condition created by Masculinity ,3d illustration

Philosopher Asks, Why the Toxic War on Masculinity?

Prominent evangelical philosopher Nancy Pearcey is teaching a course on the roots of the “hate men” movement today. Here’s an excerpt from the controversial book it's based on
Pearcey argues that the biblical view of manhood offers men far greater dignity than any secular view, especially the Darwinian one. Read More ›
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A bar with a piano, chairs, and old clocks, picture frames surround, retro English pub, Jazz bar, generative ai

What Happened to “Third Spaces”?

Many men are lacking the deep community and sense of brotherhood (fraternity) they need to flourish and grow.. Bringing back communal institutions might be crucial for social cohesion

A few decades ago, the club was more of a thing. And not the kind where people rave and disco until six in the morning. No, these were “gentlemen’s clubs,” places where guys could separate themselves both from familial and professional venues and enjoy meaningful connection with other men. Anthony Bradley, a scholar at the Acton Institute, shared some of his thoughts and findings on the decline of these “third spaces” and how they’ve been detrimental towards men in particular. The rise of more egalitarian attitudes towards gender, which had the great net benefit of opening the door for more equal opportunity for women, inadvertently led to the decline of these male-centric institutions. Today, we see the result: many men Read More ›

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The young man stands on the crowdy street

How My World Looked Inside Apple Vision Pro

I felt everything the script intended for me to feel. But I left with a lot of questions
What happens when people perceive reality differently? Will our painfully divided culture will be even more fractured? Read More ›
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Abstract planets and space background

Interstellar (2014): The Plot Thickens—Well, Relatively…

Aside from adventures and misadventures exploring Miller’s planet, discovery of a dreadful secret awaits the crew
Interstellar succeeds in the difficult task of creating sympathy for an initially unlikeable character via a harrowing plot turn. Read More ›
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A futuristic artificial intelligence neural network chatbot. A holographic  AI chatbot assistant. (generative AI)

Is the New Natural-Sounding Chatbot GPT4.o Breaking a Barrier?

It depends on what barrier you mean, says philosopher of technology Shannon Vallor. It could harm vulnerable people by convincing them that it is a person
It’s interesting that science fiction gets so much right — but then, about our relationship with AI, it gets the key thing so wrong. Read More ›
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Online dating app on smartphone

AI Is Going to Do the Dating for You

Making dating "easier" with AI might actually end up making it a lot harder.
Could AI explicate aspects of my personality, package it, and sell it to the other representative bots in the dating pool? Sure, but where is the humanity? Read More ›
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Future virtual reality learning process for children in a kindergarten daycare using Vision glasses for multimedial training and imagination

Will Apple’s Vision Pro Be the Next iPhone?

Or end up like Google Glass? With Vision Pro, in order to see anything, including the ordinary world around you, you have to use the multiple mounted cameras

(This article by Texas State University engineering prof Karl D. Stephan originally appeared at Engineering Ethics Blog (February 5, 2024) and is reprinted with permission.) Back in June of 2023, Apple announced its Vision Pro, which the Wikipedia article about it calls a “mixed reality” headset. This week, in some parts of the world you can now buy your own Vision Pro—for $3,500. While this will not be an obstacle for wealthy early adopters, the rest of us will probably wait until the beta-version bugs are worked out and the price comes down. In the meantime, we can think about what this means for the future of humanity. That sounds either presumptuous or silly, but there is no question that Read More ›

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Quantum portal to a world of wonder and mystery, where the laws of nature are strange and unpredictable. wormhole, time travel illustration.

Alien Resurrection Part 4: The Good, the Bad, and the… Bizarre

In a single moment, Purvis becomes one of the most heroic characters in the entire franchise
Alien Resurrection might help you forget Alien 3, and that alone makes it worth watching. Read More ›
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Love emotion or empathy cerebral or brain activity in caudate nucleus. Interaction and connection between two people. Conceptual 3d illustration of interactive neurological stimulation or telepathy.

When You Sync With Someone, Your Brains Wave Together

Neuroscientists have found that co-operation results in brain wave synchrony

At Scientific American, Lydia Denworth brought up an interesting topic earlier this month: The way that brain waves synchronize between two people who are communicating successfully: Neurons in corresponding locations of the different brains fire at the same time, creating matching patterns, like dancers moving together. Auditory and visual areas respond to shape, sound and movement in similar ways, whereas higher-order brain areas seem to behave similarly during more challenging tasks such as making meaning out of something seen or heard. The experience of “being on the same wavelength” as another person is real, and it is visible in the activity of the brain.” – Lydia Denworth, “Brain Waves Synchronize when People Interact,” Scientific American, July 1, 2023 For example, Read More ›

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Diverse culture in society and social justice together as a crowd of diverse people representing community and black history or cultural celebration of diversity

Dealing with Social Anxiety: Set Some Goals

Without an overarching goal, we can't effectively practice the practical steps that can get us over social anxiety

It’s no secret that rates of anxiety and depression have risen drastically in the modern American context. A cacophony of factors is to blame–everything from the decline of faith, loss of community, and digital media addiction. And for many, even when the possibility of social interaction arrives, the anxiety kicks in and leaves them feeling immobile and paralyzed. So, what can we do to practice confidence and ease in public situations? A new article at Psyche goes into depth on practical steps people can take to overcome social anxiety. The first recommendation is goal-setting. What’s your vision? What are the goalposts you’re shooting for in life? Fallon Goodman writes, Without an overarching goal, we can’t effectively practice the steps that Read More ›

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people standing around big data cloud

A Fun Scottish Film on Breaking Free From Global AI

In “Widdershins,” our animated hero is leading the perfect life — if only he were a machine, that is. Then he meets someone who…

In “Widdershins,” our animated hero is leading the perfect life — if only he were a machine, that is. Then he meets someone who… Can he break free? Does he even want to? Eleven minutes will tell… The life of a pampered gentleman is seamlessly automated by machines, but his orderly existence is thrown into chaos when he chooses to pursue a free-spirited woman, against the advice of his robot butler. – Director, Simon Briggs, 2018

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Chat bot and future marketing concept , Chatbot icon , Hand holding mobile phone with automatic chatbot message screen with abstract background

Let’s Call AI What It Really Is: Faux Intelligence

Gary Smith at Salon: While GPT-3 can string words together in convincing ways, it has no idea what the words mean

Pomona College business and investments prof Gary Smith warns Salon readers not to be too gullible about what human-sounding chatbots really amount to. He notes that in the 1960s, a pioneer chatbot called ELIZA convinced many psychiatric patients that they were interacting with a real psychiatrist. The machine simply repeated back their statements as questions, a popular psychiatric technique at the time because it generated more and more discussion — from the patient. The patients’ belief that they were interacting with a human being came to be called the Eliza effect. Has much changed? If you play around with GPT-3 (and I encourage you to do so) your initial response is likely to be astonishment — a full-blown Eliza effect. Read More ›