Tag: Featured | Page 53

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post

News
Date
July 19, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Religion, Science

Tagged
___longform, 2084 (book), AI Church, Anthony Levandowski, Christianity, Featured, Homo Deus (book), John Lennox, Max Tegmark, Robert J. Marks, Yuval Noah Harari}

Can AI Replace the Need for Belief in God?

_{Oxford mathematician contends that science should increase our respect for what God has created and allowed us to do} _{News
July 19, 2020

13

Artificial Intelligence, Religion, Science}

John Lennox. author of 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (2020), is not only an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University but also pastoral advisor to Green Templeton College at Oxford. In a podcast, “Does Revelation Talk About Artificial Intelligence?”, he discusses with Robert J. Marks, director of the Walter Bradley Institute, the title question: “Can AI replace the need for belief in God?” https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-091-John-Lennox.mp3 Selections from the transcript are provided below: (The complete downloadable transcript may be found following the Show Notes and Resources) Robert J. Marks (right): Let’s talk about the theological implications of AI. You have a reputation, not only as a mathematician, but a Christian apologist. And I wanted to go into some Read More ›

3D rendering abstract round light background

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post

News
Date
July 17, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Religion

Tagged
Atheism, Featured, John Lennox, John Polkinghorne, science}

Oxford Mathematician: Atheism Detracts from Science

_{The problem, as John Lennox sees it, is that atheism does not provide grounds for believing in rationality} _{News
July 17, 2020

2

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Religion}

Today, Evolution News and Science Today published an excerpt from Oxford mathematician John Lennox’s 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (Zondervan 2020): in which Lennox discusses some of the ways in which atheism detracts from science: Science proceeds on the basis of the assumption that the universe is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to the human mind. No science can be done without the scientist believing this, so it is important to ask for grounds for this belief. Atheism gives us none, since it posits a mindless, unguided origin of the universe’s life and consciousness. John Lennox, “Why Science and Atheism Don’t Mix” at Evolution News and Science Today: He offers physicist John Polkinghorne’s explanation of Read More ›

Woman passenger sitting in the backseat and selects a route when her self-driving car rides on the highway.

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post

News
Date
July 17, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Global Technology

Tagged
ACES, Autonomous Vehicles, Bryan Mistele, Elon Musk, Featured, Jay Richards, Millennials, ride-hailing, self-driving cars}

If Self-Driving Cars Become the Norm, What Will It Feel Like?

_{Already, Millennials are more likely than their parents to see transportation as simply a means to an end} _{News
July 17, 2020

6

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Global Technology}

Recently, Jay Richards interviewed Bryan Mistele, founder and CEO of INRIX, on the non-fiction future of the self-driving car. INRIX provides data systems for analyzing traffic issues relevant to self-driving (autonomous) vehicles. He sees a bright future, amid many misconceptions: From the interview: Jay Richards: What do you think is the key misconception that people have about this technology? Bryan Mistele: I think the biggest misconception is that it’s just about autonomous vehicles. That you’ll go to a dealer, you’ll buy an autonomous vehicle. That’s not really the vision of what people in the industry are pursuing. It’s about what we call the ACES, Autonomous Connected, Electric, and Shared, all working together to deliver, basically, mobility as a service. Certainly Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 16, 2020

Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
___longform, Bernardo Kastrup, Christof Koch, Consciousness, David Papineau, Electrons, Featured, Giulio Tononi, Johannes Kleiner, Michael Egnor, Sabine Hossenfelder, Tam Hunt}

At Nautilus: Electrons DO have a “rudimentary mind”

_{Panpsychists in science believe that nature is all there is but, they say, it includes consciousness as a fundamental fact of nature} _{News
July 16, 2020

7

Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Science}

Consciousness has traditionally been thought to correlate in some way with life but panpsychists in science are now challenging that view.

German Court Rules: Tesla Autopilot Is False Advertising

_{In America, for reasons many people can’t quite comprehend, the regulatory agencies haven’t said much about the inflated claims} _{Jonathan Bartlett
July 15, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Ethics}

Here at Mind Matters News, we have long been critics of Elon Musk’s claims about his “self-driving” Teslas. Autopilot is a cool feature but marketing it as “full self-driving” is simply a lie, and a dangerous one at that. Musk (right) has been making false claims about Autopilot for almost half a decade now. He claimed in 2016 that all Teslas that left the factory were equipped with the hardware for Level 5 full self-driving. If you’re not aware of the levels of self-driving defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), Level 5 means that the car will take you wherever you want to go and you can sleep in the back. Level 4 means that, in some situations Read More ›

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post

Roman Yampolskiy
Date
July 14, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Technocracy

Tagged
___longform, Featured, Ray Kurzweil}

AI Will Fail, Like Everything Else, Eventually

_{The more powerful the AI, the more serious the consequences of failure} _{Roman Yampolskiy
July 14, 2020

11

Artificial Intelligence, Technocracy}

A day does not go by without a news article reporting some amazing breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In fact, progress in AI has been so steady that some futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil, project current trends into the future and anticipate the headlines of tomorrow. Consider some developments from the world of technology: 2004 DARPA sponsors a driverless car grand challenge. Technology developed by the participants eventually allows Google to develop a driverless automobile and modify existing transportation laws. 2005 Honda’s ASIMO humanoid robot is able to walk as fast as a human, delivering trays to customers in a restaurant setting. The same technology is now used in military robots. 2007 Computers learned to play a perfect game of checkers, Read More ›

man riding on self balancing board graffiti

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post

Gary Smith
Date
July 13, 2020

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
Alan Lichtman, Data Mining, Donald Trump, Elections, Featured, Helmut Norpoth, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John von Neumann, predictions}

Election Models: Predicting the Past is Easy — and Useless

_{You can seldom see where you are going by looking in a rear-view mirror} _{Gary Smith
July 13, 2020

8

Mathematics}

I told my students that I had a model that predicted the popular vote for the the last ten presidential elections (1980–2016) perfectly.

Can Animal Minds Rival Humans Under the Right Circumstances?

_{Are we just not being fair to animals, as some researchers think?} _{Michael Egnor
July 12, 2020

8

Mathematics, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

In 2007, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a psychologist and primatologist , published a paper in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science with a remarkable citation: Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Kanzi Wamba, Panbanisha Wamba, and Nyota Wamba, “Welfare of Apes in Captive Environments: Comments on, and by, a Specific Group of Apes,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science 10:1 (2007): 7–19. What is remarkable about the paper is not the text but the authorship statement. Kanzi, Panbanisha, and Nyota Wamba are not co-author colleagues—they’re apes, bonobos to be specific. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh (right) is a controversial scientist who believes that animals have intellectual powers that can, under the right circumstances, rival the human intellect. She included her ape subjects as co-authors on the paper because Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 12, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Religion, Science

Tagged
2084 (book), Dan Brown, Featured, god, John Lennox, Robert J. Marks}

In Dan Brown’s AI Hype Novel, the Hero Stumbles Onto God

_{Not clear that was supposed to happen but stories do get away on their authors at times…} _{News
July 12, 2020

6

Artificial Intelligence, Religion, Science}

In a recent podcast, “John Lennox: False Assumptions in the hype over AI,” Oxford mathematician John Lennox, author of 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (2020) discussed common mistaken assumptions with Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks. One of them seems to be that AI might prove there is no God, replace God, or become God. Things get interesting when these science fictions meet the world of fact. https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-090-John-Lennox.mp3 From the transcript: Robert J. Marks: In your book, you discussed Dan Brown’s novel entitled Origin. Now Dan Brown is famous for writing many, I don’t know, kind of strange books. One was the Da Vinci Code, but his recent one deals with artificial intelligence and you discuss Read More ›

concept of future technology 5G network wireless systems and internet of things

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post

News
Date
July 10, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Global Technology

Tagged
___longform, China, COSM, Featured, George Gilder, Information Theory, Peter Thiel, Universities, wealth}

Valley Insider Peter Thiel’s Comments Last Year Proved Prophetic

_{China’s recent takeover of Hong Kong and the campus Cancel Culture spotlight his warnings for our culture’s future in the age of 5G} _{News
July 10, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Global Technology}

Peter Thiel, who spoke by interactive video to the COSM conference last October, is probably the most remarkable of the Silicon Valley insiders. A fuller version of his discussions with tech philosopher George Gilder has just been released. What makes Thiel (think PayPal, Facebook, Palantir, Airbnb, Lyft, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX) unique is that he so much contradicts the Valley stereotype and is certainly not afraid to tell the Valley its faults. In fact, he moved down to Los Angeles in 2018, fed up with the Valley as a one-party state. He suggested in 2019 that Google be investigated for treason for refusing to work with the Pentagon but helping the Chinese military. Most of the time, though, Thiel prefers Read More ›

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post

Gary Smith
Date
July 7, 2020

Categorized
Business and Finance, Ethics

Tagged
Featured, stock market}

Stocks Are Not a Ponzi Scheme and Here’s Why Not

_{Gary Smith
July 7, 2020

7

Business and Finance, Ethics}

When you mail a letter to someone in another country, you can enclose an international reply coupon (IRC) that can be exchanged for that country’s postage stamps and used to mail a letter back to you. It is like enclosing a self-addressed stamped envelope except that you do not need to figure out how to buy foreign postage stamps. It is the polite thing to do but also the source of the most famous swindle in history. In 1920, a Massachusetts man named Charles Ponzi (right, in 1920) promised to pay investors 50 percent interest every 45 days. Compounded eight times a year, the effective annual rate of return was 2,463 percent! He said that his profits would come from Read More ›

person holding baseball ball in black leather baseball mitt

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post

Jonathan Bartlett
Date
July 7, 2020

Categorized
Business and Finance

Tagged
Blockchain, cryptocurrency, digitization, Elon Musk, Featured}

Collectors’ Items Are Now on the Blockchain

_{Jonathan Bartlett
July 7, 2020

3

Business and Finance}

When I was growing up, trading cards were all the rage. They mostly centered on baseball but trading cards for every major sport emerged. The Topps Company has long had the lead in baseball cards, with Fleer and Upper Deck trailing far behind. Recently, Topps made a radical move into the digital sector by making some of its trading cards available via the WAX blockchain. WAX stands for Worldwide Asset eXchange. WAX is a blockchain (i.e., cryptocurrency) system that is geared around the buying, selling, and trading of virtual items. Previously, WAX was primarily used to trade goods within gaming platforms. For instance, the massively multiplayer economic strategy game Prospectors utilized WAX to allow users to trade items. However, in Read More ›

Artificial Intelligence and Transhumanism - illustration

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post

News
Date
July 7, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Technocracy, Transhumanism

Tagged
2084 (book), Featured, John Lennox, New Soviet Man, transhumanism}

John Lennox: Transhumanism Is Not a New Idea

_{News
July 7, 2020

2

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Technocracy, Transhumanism}

In his just-published book, 2084, Oxford mathematician John Lennox points out that, in the 20th century, both the Communists and the Nazis had attempted transhumanist projects. For example, In the former Soviet Union, attempts were made to use science to create a “New Man.” In 1924, Leon Trotsky wrote: “Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.” What that program of eugenics involved is explained by historian Andrey Zubov as cited by Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 6, 2020

Categorized
Global Technology, Philosophy of Mind, Technocracy

Tagged
Featured, free will, Lucas Skrobot, Michael Egnor, totalitarianism}

Michael Egnor: Denying Free Will Is Totalitarian

_{News
July 6, 2020

2

Global Technology, Philosophy of Mind, Technocracy}

Specifically, “The denial of free will is the cornerstone of totalitarian systems.” That’s what he told podcaster Lucas Skrobot in the second of two podcast discussions: Dr. Michael Egnor | Free Will and Totalitarian Ideologies (Part 2 of 2) [E152] Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor has written a fair bit on free will for Mind Matters News. Here are some selections to consider: No free will means no justice: “Free will is the cornerstone of all human rights and the cornerstone of our Constitutional rights. The denial of free will is, literally, the denial of human freedom. Without free will, we are livestock, without the presumption of innocence, without actual innocence, and without rights. A justice system that has no respect for Read More ›

Psychology concept. Sunrise and woman silhouette.

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post

News
Date
July 4, 2020

Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Featured, Lucas Skrobot, Michael Egnor, p-zombie}

Neurosurgeon Explains Why You Are Not a Zombie

_{News
July 4, 2020

2

Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind}

Podcaster Lucas Skrobot recently interviewed neurosurgeon Michael Egnor on the difference between the mind and the brain. Egnor told him, “My wife jokes with me that meeting me is always the worst part of a person’s life.” At 22:08, Dr. Egnor provides a thought experiment to explain that minds must transcend materials—the zombie problem. The zombie problem? Ah yes, the philosophers’ zombie: For that, you might also see one of Egnor’s articles: “Neuroscientist Michael Graziano should meet the p-zombie.” To understand consciousness, we need to establish what it is not before we create any more new theories: A p-zombie (a philosophical zombie, as distinguished from the kind that sells movies) is identical to a human being but has no first-person Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 3, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance, Technocracy

Tagged
2084 (book), Featured, John Lennox, Robert J. Marks, Shoshana Zuboff}

2084 vs 1984: The Difference AI Could Make to Big Brother

_{News
July 3, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance, Technocracy}

In a recent podcast, Oxford mathematician John Lennox answered some questions raised about his new book, 2084 by Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks, including questions as to how the loss of privacy could wind up really harming us: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-089-John-Lennox.mp3 From the transcript: Robert J. Marks: It’s been said that AI is the new electricity. It’s neither good nor bad. You have addressed some of the potential negative uses of artificial intelligence or the negative impacts of artificial intelligence, but expanding on that, what are some of the big threats that you see in the use of AI technology in the near future? John Lennox: Well, the threats are best explained by comparing them with the advantages. Let’s take Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 3, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Surveillance

Tagged
COSM, Featured, Geofencing, Privacy, Smartphone}

AT&T CTO Says, Yes, You Can Live Without Your Smart Phone

_{News
July 3, 2020

2

Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Surveillance}

At COSM 2019, Jay Richards interviewed AT&T CTO Andre Fuetsch (the guy who says your smart phone will disappear). Is that true? And how will we live? From the interview: Andre Fuetsch: We are now on the brink of being able to connect many, many more things than we’ve ever seen before. And just by the fact of being able to connect more things … look at the more traditional wireless networks that we’ve had in the preceding generations. It frankly was just about connecting phones, right? “Some were sort of dumb phones, some were more feature phones. Some are now obviously more smartphones. And these were really more of kind of a one to one relationship with people. 5G, Read More ›

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post

News
Date
July 2, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
2084 (book), Featured, John Lennox, Max Tegmark}

John Lennox: How AI Raises the Stakes for All of Us

_{News
July 2, 2020

3

Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Philosophy of Mind}

This is an excerpt from John Lennox‘s 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (Zondervan 2020) published with permission: In April 2018 at the TED talks in Vancouver physicist and cosmologist MaxTegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute at MIT, made this rather grandiose statement: “In creating AI [artificial intelligence], we’re birthing a new form of life with unlimited potential for good or ill.” A study by Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson entitled The Digital Ape carries the subtitle How to Live (in Peace) with Smart Machines. They are optimistic that humans will still be in charge, provided we approach the process sensibly. But is this optimism justified? The director of Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study Read More ›

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post

News
Date
June 30, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Global Technology, Surveillance

Tagged
2084 (book), China, Featured, John Lennox, Martin Rees, Nick Bostrom}

Exclusive!: John Lennox Answers Our Questions About AI in 2084

_{News
June 30, 2020

5

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Global Technology, Surveillance}

In his new book, 2084, the Oxford mathematician doubts that AI, now or then, will out-think humans. Our real worry is how they will be used.

Why is Bell’s Theorem Important for Conservation of Information?

_{Proving a negative is difficult. Demonstrating that there are no leafy green crows is hard to do without examining every crow. But there's another way.} _{Eric Holloway
June 29, 2020

4

Information Theory, Mathematics}

Proving a negative is difficult. Think about it. For example, demonstrating that there are no leafy green crows is hard to do without exhaustively examining every crow in existence. On the other hand, proving there are no crows naturally emblazoned with the text of the King James Bible is a bit easier to do. Proving a negative is possible if the extremes are large enough. Such as result is known as a no-go theorem. One of the most profound no-go theorems can be found in quantum physics. Physicist John Bell (1928–1990) proved — entirely from first principles — that there is a fundamental difference between how particles interact classically compared with how they interact within quantum physics. In classical physics, Read More ›