^TagFeatured

^{Type
post

Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
September 19, 2020

Categorized
Ethics, Global Technology, Technocracy

Tagged
___longform, censorship, China, Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Disney, Featured, Jeannette Ng, Liu Yifei, Max Brooks, Mulan (film), Turpan, Uyghurs, World War Z (film), Ziba Murat}

Mulan: Disney Talks Freedom at Home, Toes the Line in China

_{Films we see get altered in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to conform to the requirements of CCP propaganda} _{Heather Zeiger

September 19, 2020

10

Ethics, Global Technology, Technocracy}

China’s government allows only about thirty-four Hollywood movies to be shown in Chinese theaters. As a result, entertainment companies like Disney go out of their way to make sure a film appeals to both North American crowds and Chinese Communist Party’s censors. Of course, what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allows and doesn’t allow in films is vague and subject to change, which keeps foreign film-makers guessing. Mulan, Disney’s latest attempt to please both the North American and the Chinese market, has failed to do either, for a number of reasons. Financially, Disney is already hurting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Theaters in the U.S. either remain closed or permit only limited-capacity seating. In response, Disney released Mulan on its streaming Read More ›

Astronaut and robot or artificial intelligence handshake on alien planet.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
September 17, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Are We Here to Re-Create Ourselves? (book), cosmic rays, Featured, Geoffrey Simmons, Guillermo Gonzalez, Robert J. Marks, Robot counselors, Robots, Science fiction, space brain, Space travel, Space travel health issues}

Should Robots, Instead of Humans, Go Into Space?

_{They might be better at life in space than humans. But could they be counselors too?} _{News

September 17, 2020

9

Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind, Science}

Are we here to re-create ourselves as robotic humanoids? In a recent podcast, Robert J. Marks discusses what robots can do for us with retired internist and author Geoffrey Simmons. In his most recent book, Are We Here to Re-Create Ourselves?: The Convergence of Designs (2019), Simmons argues that in creating artificially intelligent robots, we are trying to recreate the human being. But can we really recreate everything about ourselves? For example, they discussed, can robots be counselors? Should robots go into space instead of humans? As a writer, Simmons has found audiences for both fiction and non-fiction. For example, he wrote Z-papers (1976), a medically based crime thriller in which “In a Chicago hospital, the U.S. Vice Presidential candidate Read More ›

Ethics Integrity Fairness Ideals Behavior Values Concept

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
September 15, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics

Tagged
Autonomous weapons, bias, Design ethics, End-user ethics, Featured, HARPY missile, IEEE Code of Ethics, self-driving cars, The Case for Killer Robots}

AI: Design Ethics vs. End User Ethics — the Difference Is Important

_{Robert J. Marks

September 15, 2020

5

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics}

The major ethical challenge in AI design is unintended consequences. It’s up to end users to debate which consequences SHOULD be intended. Read More ›

Vintage tone beautiful pedestrian stone bridge and knee-wobbling vantage point over the second tier 69-foot drop of Multnomah Falls lower in winter time. Natural and seasonal waterfall background

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
September 15, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Religion

Tagged
Featured, G. K. Chesterton, John Horgan, Law of non-contradiction, Rene Descartes, Skepticism, Solipsism}

How Do You Know You Are Not the Only Human Who Ever Existed?

_{Can evidence or logic help you decide? You might be surprised…} _{Michael Egnor

September 15, 2020

6

Philosophy of Mind, Religion}

Solipsism is the belief that you are the only human being who has ever existed; all others are the inventions of your imagination. G.K. Chesterton famously received a letter from a reader who commented (I paraphrase), ‘Solipsism is a compelling metaphysical position. I’m surprised more people don’t believe it.” At Scientific American, columnist John Horgan describes solipsism as a central dilemma of human life. In a recent essay, “How do I know I’m not the only conscious being in the universe?”, he writes, It is a central dilemma of human life—more urgent, arguably, than the inevitability of suffering and death. I have been brooding and ranting to my students about it for years. It surely troubles us more than ever Read More ›

Worried doctors and medical researchers on conference meeting, discussing possible solutions for resolving a world health crisis. Health and medical care concept. Selective focus.

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
September 14, 2020

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Peer Review, Science

Tagged
Aleh Tsyvinski, bitcoin, Featured, James Tobin, Meaningless correlations, replication crisis, Reproducibility, Reproducibility crisis, Ronald Fisher, Statistical significance, Yukun Liu}

Computers Excel at Finding Temporary Patterns

_{Which contributes to the replication crisis in science} _{Gary Smith

September 14, 2020

7

Medicine and Health, Peer Review, Science}

The scientific method calls for the rigorous testing of plausible theories, ideally through randomized controlled trials. For example, a study of a COVID-19 vaccine might give the vaccine to 10,000 randomly selected people and a placebo to another 10,000, and compare the infection rates for the two groups. If the difference in the infection rates is too improbable to be explained by chance, then the difference is deemed statistically significant. How improbable? In the 1920s, the great British statistician, Sir Ronald Fisher , said that he favored a 5 percent threshold. So 5 percent became the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, the establishment of a 5 percent hurdle for statistical significance has had the perverse effect of encouraging researchers to do whatever Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
September 14, 2020

Categorized
Programming

Tagged
___longform, Container orchestration, Containers (programming), Docker, Featured, Scalability, Stack (in Docker), Swarm (Docker), Volumes (Docker)}

Part 4: Docker—An Introduction to Container Orchestration

_{This tutorial will focus on Docker’s swarm because it comes installed with Docker and uses the same standard Docker files} _{Jonathan Bartlett

September 14, 2020

12

Programming}

In this installment we are going to look at “container orchestration” for Docker. In the previous installment, we just looked at how to run an individual container. However, most applications are a combination of services which are orchestrated together to make an application. While in theory all the pieces of an application could be built into a single container, it is better to split an application into its relevant services and run a separate container for each service. There are several reasons for this, but the biggest one is scalability. Remember, the containers don’t care if they all run on the same physical machine or different machines. By splitting the services into different containers, we can tell them all to Read More ›

Dozens of Drones Swarm in the Cloudy Sky.

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
September 11, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Military

Tagged
Angel Has Fallen (film), autonomous AI drones, Drone swarms, Featured, Helicopters, Paul Scharre, Slaughterbots (film), US Army}

Meet the U.S. Army’s New Drone Swarms

_{As with insects, only a few drones need survive to accomplish their task} _{Robert J. Marks

September 11, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Military}

The US Army is developing a “swarm” of autonomous AI drones to protect combat helicopters. The swarm is modeled after social swarming insects like bees and ants who protect their queen. A drone nest protects the queen helicopter at all costs. The protective swarm’s tasks will range from sophisticated electronic warfare to acting as false targets (decoys) for incoming missiles. They will carry out theses tasks autonomously: Goals and tasks must be assigned by a person, but the way of their implementation, reaching the target or navigation and flight control is to be “in the hands of” advanced software and artificial intelligence. TOC, “The US Army is developing a ‘pocket’ swarm of combat drones” at BulgarianMilitary.com Here’s what a small Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
September 10, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Religion

Tagged
aboutness, Bernardo Kastrup, Computers, Consciousness, cosmopsychism, Featured, intentionality, Michael Egnor, Near-death experiences, Nokia, Ray Kurzweil}

Michael Egnor: What Happens to Our Consciousness After We Die?

_{Computer programmer and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup provides a surprising answer} _{News

September 10, 2020

11

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Religion}

In this week’s podcast, “Can Computers Think?”, Michael Egnor continued his discussion with philosopher and computer programmer Bernardo Kastrup. As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for The European Organization for Nuclear Research and for Phillips Research Laboratories, and has authored many academic papers and books. This week, they look at a big question, “Will computers ever be conscious?”. But Egnor brought up an even bigger one: “What happens to our consciousness after we die?” As a scientist, Kastrup has worked for The European Organization for Nuclear Research and for Phillips Research Laboratories and has authored many academic papers and books. He is a leading advocate of cosmopsychism, the idea that intelligence did not randomly evolve somehow to help life forms Read More ›

Coronavirus pandemia concept, planet hologram

^{Type
post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
September 8, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health

Tagged
Bradykinin, Bradykinin storm, COVID-19, Featured, Summit (supercomputer), Tennessee Oak Ridge National Lab, Vitamin D}

Supercomputer Provides a New Clue re COVID-19 Fatalities

_{A surprising pattern I found last April: Southern hemisphere countries had significantly lower death rates than northern ones} _{Eric Holloway

September 8, 2020

5

Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health}

Back in April, I ran an analysis on COVID-19 death rates in relation to Earth’s hemispheres. I took the COVID-19 death rate for each country that reported more than 500 cases and plotted its death rate against its latitude. A surprising pattern emerged: Southern hemisphere countries had significantly lower death rates than northern ones: That is not a statistical fluke because the graph comprises 198 different countries and the best fit quadratic curve parameters have statistical significance scores of 0.12, 0.07 and 0.0000016 for the x^2, x and c components respectively. What could explain this pattern? As I noted at the time, one big difference is that, when it is cold and cloudy in the northern hemisphere, it is warm Read More ›

A boy teenager with a teacher collect robot arduino and program it on the computer. The boards and microcontrollers are on the table. STEM education. Programming. Mathematics. The science. Technologie

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
September 7, 2020

Categorized
Education, Programming

Tagged
Citizen scientists, Electronics for Beginners (book), Engineer’s Mini-Notebooks, Featured, Forrest Mims III, Forrest Mims’ Science Experiments (book), Getting Started in Electronics (book), Sarah Mims}

New Electronics Book Honors Citizen Scientist Forrest Mims III

_{Jonathan Bartlett’s dedication reflects Mims’ immense influence on electronics enthusiasts—including himself, as a boy} _{News

September 7, 2020

4

Education, Programming}

Forrest M. Mims III (pictured) has been an icon for many decades to two hobbyist movements: hobbyist electronics and citizen science. Anyone who used to visit Radio Shack in its heyday has probably seen and/or benefited from more than one of Mims’ books. Mims’ most prominent claim to fame was his series of Engineer’s Mini-Notebooks, small volumes that diagrammed circuits and their components and designs. Most hobbyists had a large collection of these notebooks and eventually they were collected into the book Getting Started in Electronics. Mims has also been one of the most prominent “citizen scientists.” A citizen scientist engages in science without the backing of a degree or institution, for the love of discovery. Mims is famous for Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
September 7, 2020

Categorized
Education, Ethics

Tagged
Academic dishonesty, Cell phone, Cheating (on exams), Chegg, COVID-19, Featured, Virtual exams}

What’s To Be Done About Cheating with Chegg in the COVID era?

_{College-level solutions to specific problems can be texted, for a fee, to students writing exams} _{Robert J. Marks

September 7, 2020

3

Education, Ethics}

Academic dishonesty is a fancy term for cheating. With profit-motivated websites like Chegg.com, cheating is now easier than ever. When taking an exam, take a photo of a problem that stumps you and send it to Chegg. In literally minutes, you’ll be sent the answer over your cell phone. How do they do it? Often they employ smart nerds from poor countries who, by local standards, are paid big bucks for their efforts.Chegg, which charges $14.95 per month for its service, does not see itself as a site for cheaters but as a resource to help with homework. It advertises: With over 21 million homework solutions, you can also search our library to find similar homework problems & solutions. Browsing Read More ›

A 3D render of a futuristic person made of gold, looking up at the sun

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
September 7, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Programming, Religion

Tagged
A.I. Jesus, Featured, George Davila Durendal, Rob Sheldon}

A Physicist Weighs In on “A.I. Jesus” Sputtering from the Bible

_{Rob Sheldon explains why the prophecies sound bizarre rather than merely mundane} _{News

September 7, 2020

3

Artificial Intelligence, Programming, Religion}

Last Sunday we reported on the computer program that inventor George Davila Durendal, hoped (or so he said) would—for millennia—be a sort of Scripture for robots and people. The program constructs “prophecies” from the text of the King James Version, a translation of the Bible into English completed in 1611, which has remained influential for centuries. Will the A.I. Jesus version do so well? Not if you go by prophecies like this: “And he shall come against him, and said, As the LORD liveth, that he might be fulfilled which was spoken, he said, Thou are the spirit of your good works that ye have not seen, nor any thing of the service thereof, and a certain censer, and the Read More ›

Creative background, male hand holding a phone with a 5G hologram on the background of the city. The concept of 5G network, high-speed mobile Internet, new generation networks. Copy space,

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
September 4, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Tagged
5G, ACES, Autonomous Vehicles, Bellevue (Washington), Bruce Agnew, Cascadia Center, Communication, Featured, Jay Richards, Seattle, Transportation}

Seattle Area a Good Site for 5G Development, Says Analyst

_{By increasing bandwidth and reducing slow times, 5G will enable more people to do more online} _{News

September 4, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance}

At COSM 2019, Jay Richards interviewed Bruce Agnew, Director of the Seattle-based ACES Northwest Network on the collective’s work in bringing ACES (Automated, Connected, Electric, and Shared) vehicle technologies to the Puget Sound region. They discussed, among other things, the role that 5G will play in implementing autonomous vehicles. Since 1993, Bruce Agnew has been the Policy Director of Seattle-based Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center. The Cascadia Center is a strategic alliance from Vancouver, BC, to Eugene, Oregon, promoting high speed passenger rail, Interstate-5 freight mobility, seamless border crossings, bi-national and bi-state tourism marketing, and sustainable community development. Two of his co-chairs, Tom Alberg and Bryan Mistele, were also interviewed in this series (at the links). From the interview: Agnew began Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
September 3, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Religion

Tagged
Bernardo Kastrup, cosmopsychism, Featured, free will, George Berkeley (1685–1753), god, Idealism, Materialism, Michael Egnor, Naturalism, Objective idealism}

Does Physics Today Point to Mind Rather Than Matter Only?

_{A cosmopsychist looks at the universe, God, and free will} _{News

September 3, 2020

12

Philosophy of Mind, Religion}

In a recent podcast, “Does the Moon Exist if No One is Looking at It?”, Michael Egnor continued his discussion with philosopher and computer programmer Bernardo Kastrup. As a scientist, Kastrup has worked for The European Organization for Nuclear Research and for Phillips Research Laboratories, and has authored many academic papers and books. This week’s topic is the way physics today points to mind as opposed to materialism. Kastrup offers some thoughts on God and free will as well, from his cosmopsychist (or objective idealist) position: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-095-Bernardo-Kastrup.mp3 From the transcript: (Other discussions in the series, Show Notes, Resources, and a link to the complete transcript follow.) Michael Egnor: You have said and written that physics points to the mind. What Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
September 3, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Derek Parfit, Featured, Identity, Personal identity, Roger Sperry, split-brain surgery}

Does Split-brain Surgery Show That We Have No Real Identity?

_{A prominent philosopher built his career arguing against the existence of personal identity} _{Michael Egnor

September 3, 2020

8

Philosophy of Mind}

One of the most bizarre consequences of the modernist materialist conception of human beings is the notion that personal identity is not real or not continuous. This view is, of course, contrary in every way to the lived experience of each of us. Like everyone else, I am the same person I was as a child, and the same person I will be a moment before my death. I am me, and I am no other. Of course, at different times of my life I have had different memories, experiences, and perceptions, but it is the same I (the only I) that has them. This is so fundamental to reality that it seems beyond question. It is not even clear Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
September 2, 2020

Categorized
Programming

Tagged
___longform, Docker, Featured, Linux, Unix}

Part 3: Working with Docker: An Interactive Tutorial

_{Docker gives development teams more reliable, repeatable, and testable systems, deployed at massive scale with the click of a button} _{Jonathan Bartlett

September 2, 2020

17

Programming}

As businesses move more and more infrastructure online due to the effects of competition (not to mention COVID-19), finding the best way to manage that infrastructure becomes more and more important. Docker gives development teams more reliable, repeatable, and testable systems that can be deployed at massive scale with the click of a button. In this series (Parts 1 and 2 are linked below), we are looking under the hood at Docker, an infrastructure management tool that has grown rapidly in popularity over the last decade. In this installment, I will walk you through the process of using the Docker command line tools to download, install, and run containers, as well as build your own container. If you’re not a Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
August 31, 2020

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Complex Specified Information, David Deutsch, Erwin Schrödinger, Featured, Multiverse, Specified Complexity}

Here Is a Way We Can Be Sure If We Are Living in a Multiverse

_{An experiment can test the idea that there is an infinite number of universes} _{Eric Holloway

August 31, 2020

5

Philosophy of Mind, Science}

For our experiment, we need a quantum coin flipper, a disintegration gun, and observers who are sure that there is an infinite array of universes out there. Read More ›

Interior of warehouse storage, Stack of shipment boxes on pallets and hand pallet truck, Warehouse industry delivery shipment goods, logistics and transportation.

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
August 31, 2020

Categorized
Business and Finance, Programming

Tagged
___longform, Alan Turing, Chroot jails, Cloud computing, Containers (programming), Docker, Emulator, Featured, Filesystem, LXC (Linux Containers), Union filesystem, Virtual memory, Virtualization, VMWare}

Part 2: A Peek Under the Covers at the New Docker Technology

_{Many advances enable Docker to significantly reduce a system’s overhead} _{Jonathan Bartlett

August 31, 2020

9

Business and Finance, Programming}

As businesses move more and more of their infrastructure online due to the effects of competition (not to mention COVID-19), finding the best way to manage that infrastructure becomes more and more important. As we saw in Part 1, Docker enables development teams to have more reliable, repeatable, and testable systems that can be deployed at massive scale with the click of a button. In this installment, we are going to take a look at the technology behind Docker and how it originated. From Emulators to Virtual Machines Docker allows you to run numerous “containers” at the same time on a single computer. Each of these containers acts as if it were a separate computer. It knows nothing about what Read More ›

Bull market trend, green growth arrow. Stock Exchange and concept of a trading chart. Low poly, wireframe 3d Raster illustration. Abstract polygonal image on blue neon background

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
August 28, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Tagged
AI and prediction, COVID-19 Recession, Featured, Recession, stock market, Stock market predictions}

The Stock Market Keeps Rising Despite COVID. Is It Nuts?

_{I’ve been asked whether advanced AI can explain the conundrum} _{Gary Smith

August 28, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance}

What is going on? Our GDP has collapsed and 16 million people are unemployed. Thousands of small businesses and dozens of billion-dollar companies have gone bankrupt, including California Pizza Kitchen, Hertz, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, and Brooks Brothers. Yet, the stock market keeps hitting all-time high after all-time high. The stock market is supposed to be related to the economy. When the economy booms, corporate profits explode; when the economy collapses, profits crater. That’s what happened during the Great Depression when stock prices fell 90 percent and the unemployment rate averaged 19 percent for a decade. Now, stocks and the economy are moving in opposite directions. What is going on? A friend who knows that I live, breathe, and teach investments Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
August 28, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Tagged
ACES, Autonomous Vehicles, employment, Featured, Jay Richards, Job Displacement, self-driving cars, Tom Alberg, Traffic fatalities}

Autonomous Vehicles Are Not a “Rich Person’s” Technology

_{A transportation expert tells Jay Richards, alternative transport may disrupt the transportation industry but only in the short term} _{News

August 28, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance}

Jay Richards talked recently with Tom Alberg, Founder of the Madrona Venture Group and Co-chair of the ACES Northwest Network, about ACES’ efforts to bring Automated, Connected, Electric, and Shared vehicle technologies to the Puget Sound region: The Benefits of ACES Vehicle Technology A partial transcript follows: Jay Richards: Well, you were chairing the panel on autonomous vehicles and you’re part of an initiative here in Seattle. What do you think is the most important takeaway from that? Tom Alberg: I think that it’s really a combination of technologies. It’s both new technologies and it’s changed business models. So we formed a group here in Seattle called ACES, Autonomous, Connected, Electric, and Shared. “Shared” is really kind of the Uber Read More ›