Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagFeatured

protest in hong kong 2019 june 12

Hong Kong: The Dread That Lies Ahead

They fear the fate of the Uyghurs, under "complete video surveillance"

They dread 2047 when Hong Kong comes completely under the jurisdiction of the Communist Party and is subject to the CCP’s rule of law rather than Hong Kong’s own laws under the current “one country, two systems” regime.

Read More ›
Man trying to whistle

Google’s Secret Health Data Grab: The Whistleblower Talks

This is the fourth whistleblower in the last eighteen months

“The decision came to me slowly, creeping on me through my day-to-day work,” we are told, until it came down to “how could I say nothing?”

Read More ›
Chatbot / Social Bot mit Quellcode im Hintergrund

Should AI-Written News Stories Have Bylines? Whose?

Like it or not, AI is here to stay. So, how do we make the best use of it in writing?

Automation can help some aspects of writing. But media outlets get tech “google”-eyes and too often fail to ask the hard questions about what they are automating, how, and why.

Read More ›
Quantum computer system. Internet connection. Net system. Modern big data. Magic code. .Techno pattern. Intersect grid. Symmetry lines. Energy blocks. Kaleidoscopic shape. AI. Sci-fi

Google vs. IBM?: Quantum Supremacy Isn’t the Big Fix Anyway

If human thought is a halting oracle, then even quantum computing will not allow us to replicate human intelligence

Google’s quantum supremacy claim is certainly fascinating and controversial, but even if true, it ultimately only amounts to an incremental and even inconsequential improvement in the state of AI and ML, due to the still-unmet need for a halting oracle.

Read More ›
Big brother electronic eye concept, technologies for the global surveillance, security of computer systems and networks

Can a Big Data Program Be Society’s Crystal Ball?

Can a program with enough data on all of us predict our future?

Even fans admit that, if the program works, bad actors can use it just as easily as New Scientist’s virtuecrats.

Read More ›
Detail of cyborg eye and robot.3d illustration

But Could Techno-Immortality Ever Be the Real Thing?

Oxford mathematician John Lennox looks at Ray Kurzweil’s techno-immortality from a Christian perspective

In these excerpts from the podcast, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with John Lennox about an AI immortality where we are told, for example, that we won’t need tongues because we can tap right into our taste buds.

Read More ›
Abstract.

Neuroscientist Says Our Souls Are Not Machines

A reviewer notes that Sharon Dirckx makes her case in a way that is easy for the attentive non-specialist reader to understand.

If readers are looking for a book by a writer familiar with the science who does not just adopt the materialist view and then spend two hundred and fifty pages supporting it, Am I Just My Brain? might be a good choice.

Read More ›
Personal development and business idea career concept.

Astrophysicist: Materialism Is on Shaky Ground

Adam Frank ponders the fact that materialism entirely fails to explain consciousness

Frank’s computational research group has developed advanced supercomputer tools to study how stars form and die. So he would incline to a materialist view, surely? But no, he says, quantum physics blew all that away. And some neuroscientists just haven’t caught up.

Read More ›
Infinity sign black and white texture
Infinity sign black and white texture, computer generated abstract background, 3D rendering

Yes, You Can Manipulate Infinity—in Math

The hyperreals are bigger (and smaller) than your average number — and better!

Hyperreal numbers are a new type of number that was developed to simplify and rethink the way that we deal with very large and very small numbers.

Read More ›
Cuboid with Digital Zeros and Ones

How Much Google Do You Really Need?

As more people are becoming concerned about Big Tech’s snooping and apparent political ambitions, practical responses are emerging

Getting away from constant surveillance and dangerous little bubbles of manipulated information is easier than some users may realize, tech pioneers and experts say. You can make simple changes today.

Read More ›
Head of the robot girl

A Type of Reasoning AI Can’t Replace

Abductive reasoning requires creativity, in addition to computation

AI, says William Littlefield, would get stuck in an endless loop with abductive reasoning, which is an inference to the best explanation or an educated guess. But it plays an important role in creating hypotheses in the sciences.

Read More ›
Hong Kong Protests pleafor peace Erin Song Unsplash B05XahTDS6k

Hong Kong: Face Mask Ban Fuels Fiercer Protest

The masks, like many of the protesters’ strategies, circumvent China’s omnipresent high-tech surveillance

The Chinese government may use violent behavior as a justification for obliterating the Hongkongers’ prized freedoms. As a possible precedent, the Uyghur people, as a whole, were painted as religious extremists, even though only about 1,000 people participated in violent protests.

Read More ›
Robot holding blank advertising billboard 3d rendering

How You Can Really Know You’re Talking to a Computer

In a lively exchange, computer science experts offer some savvy advice

Claims that a given program has “passed the Turing test” should be treated skeptically because a program can be optimized to pass the Turing test without demonstrating any particular intelligence.

Read More ›
Mountain coming out of the smartphone screen, location on the top

A Quick Guide to Augmented Reality

Now that Apple is integrating Augmented Reality Into iOS 13, here are some things you can do with it

While iOS 13 has some amazing features, it also has some significant limitations. The biggest one is that the tracking between the real world and the virtual world does not extend to GPS.

Read More ›
White cyborg finger about to touch human finger 3D rendering

The Three Laws of Robotics Have Failed the Robots

Almost no one out there thinks that Isaac Asimov's Three Laws could work for truly intelligent AI
Prolific science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) developed the Three Laws of Robotics, in the hope of guarding against potentially dangerous artificial intelligence. Jonathan Bartlett, Brendan Dixon, and Eric Holloway discuss what went wrong. Read More ›
Reading with a kitten in his arms, filming indoors

Cats do bond with people

Both cats and kittens showed about the same level of attachment to caregivers as children and dogs did

When a cat feels secure, he develops relationships with humans and dogs. But he won’t be either your servant or your master; just your housemate—and maybe at last your old friend.

Read More ›
Hong Kong 2019 protests Peter Y. Chuang Unsplash peter-y-chuang-LWzjqzhLjiA-unsplash

Can China Really Silence Hong Kong?

Hong Kong is tech-savvy and the protesters are adept at defeating even high-tech terrors

Some protestors use umbrellas to block the view of newly installed surveillance cameras while others dismantle the electronics. Others place traffic cones over tear gas canisters and then neutralize the gas with water.

Read More ›
Shovel Annie Spratt Unsplash annie-spratt-j4fV6dKT9tw-unsplash

Do We Need To Learn from AI How To Think Better?

No, and a moment’s thought shows why not
AI can become our "collaborators" only in the sense that a shovel can collaborate with me to dig a hole: It amplifies my powers to do things which are otherwise difficult. Read More ›