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If China Wins the Blockchain Derby, a Global Chill Will Follow
COSM 2025: While the West fusses about cryptocurrencies, China aims at building a blockchain to control the global internet. And few pay attention…
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
Wall Street Journal: A Disappointing Fret About “Conspiracy Physics”
If physicists are starting to “worry about the consequences” of discussing long-term theory failure, it is reasonable to think that there are even more serious problems within the discipline
Dawkins Watches as Science Skeeters Off a Cliff, Learns Nothing
The decline is mainly due to the loss of traditional insights gained in large part from religion
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
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
Consciousness Can’t Be Uploaded as AI? — Of Course It Can’t!
Converting ideas and memories into bits in a computer program does not recreate in the computer the person whose minds and memories they are — only a simulation
GPT 5.0 Doesn’t Understand But Is Eager to Please
Over a number of tries, it couldn’t get the labels on an illustration right because it does not understand what the words mean and how they relate to the image
Thanks to Our Screens, We’re Heading For a Post-Literate Culture?
Whatever one’s opinions regarding solutions for declining literacy rates, people can always start to brew change in their own lives and communities
Winds of Change: Skeptic Mag Defends Sex Binary Nature of Humans
It's not Skeptic Magazine that has changed. Rather, a change in our society created a need for a psychologist to come forward there to defend so obvious a proposition
AI Consciousness Myths: Neuroscientist Offers a No-Hype Approach
Àlex Gómez-Marín’s physics background shows in the way that he dissects the hyped-up claims before responding to them
Science Writers Struggle With Reality as Crises Rock Disciplines
A series of recent articles and posts by prominent science and science writing figures leaves me wondering if they know what time it is
Researcher: The Limits of Today’s Top Robots Are a Hard Ceiling
Don’t quit your job folding laundry. Those impressive-looking robots aren’t really there yet
Entrepreneur Hal Philipp: Perils of Success for Solo Inventors
He warns, when it comes to patents, “size matters.” Big companies command respect and are harder to cheat than lone inventorsHal Philipp’s inventions underpin automatic faucets, door sensors, and the capacitive touchscreens that made the smartphone era possible. In this podcast, he offers a candid field guide to turning ideas into impact. The discussion ranges from startup structure and venture capital to patent warfare, corporate brinkmanship, and the social aftershocks of the iPhone. Philipp is interviewed by Robert J. Marks and Bradley Norris. Engineering education Marks opens with a challenge to engineering education. Universities excel at training graduates for Boeing or Motorola, but seldom spotlight entrepreneurship as a viable path. Philipp agrees and then complicates the picture. If he could rewind, he says, he would “get a little more assistance,” likely allying with a larger organization to gain leverage. In Read More ›
What Kind of a “PhD-level Expert” Is ChatGPT 5.0? I Tested It.
The responses to my three prompts made clear that GPT 5.0, far from being the expert that CEO Sam Altman claims, can’t address the meanings of words or concepts
A Biologist Struggles to Understand “Unscientific Wokeness”
Truth, for many people now, is based on social, emotional, or political needs. And major science publications are buying in
Defending a Patent: Lessons from Tech Entrepreneur Hal Philipp
In Part 2 of a 3-part interview, Philipp — inventor of the modern touchscreen — tells Robert J. Marks and Bradley Norris about his struggles with AppleWhen we swipe a phone or tap a touchscreen, few of us realize how much engineering — and legal grit — underlies that simple gesture. In an interview with Mind Matters podcasting, inventor Hal Philipp traces the path from lone tinkerer to successful founder, and finally to weary veteran of patent warfare. Philipp, a key inventor behind modern capacitive sensing and touchscreens, delivers a sober message for innovators: invention is only half the battle; defending your invention can define your company’s fate. From Single-Point Touch to a Full Touchscreen Philipp’s early work focused on single-channel capacitive sensors — one-button touch or proximity detection. The breakthrough came when he generalized the idea into linear touch sliders and then into a circular Read More ›
Is the Materialist Juggernaut Running Out of Fuel?
A recent thinkmag essay prompts a thought: can intellectuals still take materialism seriously?