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Micro Softy 54: A Plane Problem for Aspiring Engineers
The senator is leaving Washington to avoid the governor and their planes are headed in opposite directionsToday’s Micro Softy tests whether you are clever enough with math to code computers or be an engineer. Here’s the story: Senator Kornn did not like Governor Friar. Both were from Texas. When Kornn learned that Governor Friar was visiting Washington, DC, Kornn said “This town’s not big enough for the both of us.” So Kornn decided to leave DC for that period. Kornn and Friar get on planes at the same time. One was at Reagan International Airport in DC and the other was at the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) Airport. So each was flying to the other’s airport. Both planes took off at the same time. After a while, Kornn looked out of his first-class window and saw Read More ›
Home Ownership: Madness Over 30-Year Mortgages
It is tempting to put borrowing and investment decisions in separate mental buckets, but they are intimately related
Animal Intelligence: What We Might Expect — and What Surprises Us
One risk with trying to put animal intelligence on a continuum with human intelligence is that it can result in apparently pointless controversies
A Lack of Transparency Threatens AI — and the American Economy
Even the Wall Street Journal does not appear to understand the nature of the looming problems
Mass Delusion Is Interesting — Especially Among Opinion Leaders
The reaction to a new book, The Arrogant Ape, provides a classic in elite opinion, aired without reference to reality
Tales From the Neanderthal Nights: Why They Really Disappeared
A new paper offers an assessment that does not need the Neanderthal to be the subhuman whose disappearance is explained by evolution. Arithmetic will suffice
Case Study: How Not to Sue AI for Libel
Monday Micro Softy 52: Elon Musk Parody Asks: Are You a Genius?
The puzzle comes from a parody X account but it is a genuine stumper
How AI Could Create Vast Increases in Learning Efficiency
Part 2: Artificial intelligence is promising to fundamentally transform education, leading to vast increases in efficiency of learning
Denial? Science seeks trust but avoids the need for inner reform
Current science seems to be going full steam ahead to Cancel the means by which it formerly advanced knowledge of the world
Human Tools Found From a Tumultuous Period 2.7 Million Years Ago
The authors talk much about “evolutionary” and “evolution.” But actually, it doesn’t sound as if there was much evolution at all. It sounds more like one enduring insight
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
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
The Real Threat AI Poses to Us Is Created by Widespread Abuse
In If Anyone Builds It, Yudkowsky and Soares are not really grappling with this problem
How a Biologist Became a Casualty in the War on Reality
If evolutionary biology’s core belief is that everything human can be reduced to animal impulses, truth is merely a survival strategy. But nonsense proved more successful
For a Sounder Approach to Investment: Deep-Six the 60/40 Rule
Sometimes, good decisions require more than blindly accepting advice from humans as well as computers!
At Psych Mag: How Your Brain Allegedly Invented God…
Not THIS again, you say? Yes, this again. Straight out of the 1970s, as if the last fifty years of research never happened
Natural Intelligence Creates Information; AI Processes It
Human intelligence creates new information through free, purposeful choices, while AI can only process/transform existing data according to predetermined rules