Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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Preacher at altar with Bible preaching to Congregation portrait close up

Study: Weekly Attendance at Religious Services Prolongs Life

Well, that’s what a recent study of older Black American men showed

According to a recent article in PLOS: For men of color, faith-based organizations become increasingly important as they approach their senior years. Whether they’re members of a church, mosque, synagogue or other center of worship, Black men are discovering life affirming—and life extending—rewards of belonging to a community of worship. A new study led by the University of Houston’s Marino Bruce suggests that regularly attending religious services may lower mortality rates for Black men in their 50s and older. These findings were recently published in journal PLOS One, in the article “Religious Service Attendance and Mortality Among Older Black Men.” Using data from the National Health and National Examination Survey (NHANES), Bruce and co-authors observed trends suggesting that mortality risks Read More ›

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Thinking robot

Should We Love or Hate an Intelligent Robot? Or Care at All?

In Season 3 of Orville that becomes a serious question

The Orville Season 3 was recommended to me by a reader. I recall seeing a large portion of the first season and enjoying it. I had not watched the second season until preparing for this series of reviews. Unfortunately, I must say at the outset that I found myself very disappointed in Season Three, ironically called New Horizons because it only retreads about half of Season Two. This latest season fell far short of my expectations which were based on my memories of the first season. Still, we’re going to take a look at each episode and see where the problems lie. Before beginning our review of the first episode, a little prologue is required. During the midpoint of the Read More ›

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Barad-dur, Mordor

Tolkien’s for Sale

Commercializing the beloved epic fantasy comes at a cost

What happens when a beloved fantasy world, once respected and celebrated because it soared above the surrounding fray of decadent literature and art, becomes mainstream? What if the very work that was intended to transcend consumerism becomes the object of mass consumption? Harley J. Sims, writing for MercatorNet, believes Amazon has diluted the characteristic beauty and depth of The Lord of the Rings for the sake of mass consumption and appeal. I’ve shared my own thoughts on the new Rings of Power show in two separate pieces (here and here) for Mind Matters already, but just to recap: the show is interesting and entertaining enough to keep watching, but it’s missing something—a moral and imaginative ingredient Tolkien articulated beautifully in Read More ›

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megaphone wrapped in barbed wire. the concept of banning freedom of speech. censorship barbed wire megaphone

The Courts: May Social Media Censor Speech and Ban Users?

Two federal appeals courts came down on opposite sides. Hear the story

May Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube censor your posts and ban you from using their social media platforms? May a state government require large social media platforms to allow users and posts to present lawful information, ideas, and viewpoints with which the platforms disagree? Florida and Texas both enacted laws to restrict platforms from censoring and banning users whose content the platforms disliked. Two different federal appeals courts in 2022 ruled on whether these two states’ laws were constitutional — and came out on opposite sides. The following three scenarios frame the key issues. Scenario A: Commercial Ground Transportation A fellow boards a private company-owned, regularly scheduled commercial bus bound for Berkeley, California, wearing a T-shirt proclaiming in big letters: Save Read More ›

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A young man with a pistol gun is standing in front of a high school preparing to go inside and commit a horrible violent mass murder shooting.

Why AI Could (But May Not) Predict School Shootings

There is no solution that is not run through natural intelligence, computer science prof Robert J. Marks explains

In recent weeks, WBC director Robert J. Marks has done a number of interviews for his new book, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Institute Press, 2022). At The Cat’s Roundtable, he was asked by host John Catsimatidis about the hype around AI and whether AI could, for example, predict school shootings. https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/Mind-Matters-205-Robert-J-Marks.mp3 Robert J. Marks: It’ll continue doing great and exciting things, but there’s a lot of hype associated with it. People think, “Well, is the Terminator going to come alive? Are we ever going to face a scenario like we see in The Matrix?” And the answer is, “No. There are certain brick walls, which artificial intelligence will never go through,” and we Read More ›

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An advanced CPU printed with a flag of USA on a neon glowing electronic circuit board. Illustration of the concept of United States made high-end micro chips.

What Difference Has the CHIPS Act Made to the U.S. and Taiwan?

We need to first look at the broader picture of what the CHIPS Act is intended to do

In a previous article, I discussed the semiconductor industry and Taiwan’s supremacy in manufacturing microchips, the foundry portion of the semiconductor supply chain. Now let’s look at the U.S. perspective on the semiconductor industry and its relationship to Taiwan. In order to do that, we have to talk about the CHIPS+ Act Congress passed a bipartisan bill, the CHIPS and Science Act in July, after a year of negotiations in committee. President Biden signed the act into law on August 9 and the CHIPS Act Implementation Strategy was launched on September 6 through an executive order. CHIPS, or “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors,” is a $250B initiative that incentivizes businesses to bring semiconductor manufacturing, research and innovation back to Read More ›

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Crypto currency background with various of shiny silver and golden physical cryptocurrencies symbol coins, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, zcash, ripple

Is Cryptocurrency Part of the Overall Future of Money?

Experts clash over whether crypto could replace government-issued currency

Recent discussions between WBC director Robert J. Marks and fellow engineers raise a question: Could new technology enable a global private currency to compete with government currencies? While the fact is not always evident in the Western world, government currencies depend on the stability of the government. Stories about people using discredited government banknotes to warm themselves, etc., are not fiction. And today what about the unbanked billions of the world who work and create value but do not have access to financial institutions? So in, for example, a national emergency, would cryptocurrency be any help? The option of private electronic currency is comparatively new and, as we might expect, expert views differ. We present them for your reflection (not Read More ›

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Scientists testing in lab.

Will AI Really Change Drug Development? Not So Fast…

Jeffrey Funk and Gary N. Smith note that AI was not significant in the development of COVID vaccines. Financial incentives ruled

Something to know before you invest or entertain high hopes: Jeffrey Funk and Gary Smith published a recent article in Salon that offers a free cold shower. Some realities they cite: Most of the expense of drug development is in clinical trials on human beings, which can’t be automated. Any attempt to save time or money would come at identifiable costs in accuracy. Yes, COVID vaccines were a banner achievement for speedy drug development. But AI played little or no standout role in the process: Determined to get a COVID-19 vaccine to the public before the November 3, 2020, presidential election, the U.S. government devoted $14 billion to support the pharmaceutical companies’ vaccine efforts. The government agreed to pay Pfizer Read More ›

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Blockchain blocks and their hexadecimal hash values conceptual vizualization 3D render

Modern Bitcoin’s Surprising Lesson About Ancient Scripture

It turns out there’s a striking parallel between the historical record of scripture and the blockchain ledger

This article was published in The Stream (September 13, 2022) and is republished with permission. Can we trust the authenticity of the New Testament scriptures? Trust is foundational in the acceptance of scripture. There’s an interesting lesson to learn from a very modern system of trust: money. Even Bitcoin, believe it or not. An Exchange of Trust We’ll start with old-fashioned familiar money. Why is a twenty dollar bill worth $20? It’s just a small sheet of paper, after all. The answer is trust. We trust the piece of paper has value because its worth is backed by the United States government. We also trust that Walmart will give us $20 worth of Doritos if we give them a twenty Read More ›

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Abandoned railway tracks in the desert, Namibia

The MacGuffin: Big Fuss About Nothing Is Not Good Science Fiction

A MacGuffin creates a lot of action but doesn’t in any way advance the plot

As with Time Travel, the MacGuffin plot risk comes in a variety of flavors. People bicker about the term, but Alfred Hitchcock (1863–1942) summarized the gist of it: A MacGuffin is “the thing the characters on the screen worry about but the audience don’t care.” The MacGuffin creates a lot of action but doesn’t in any way advance the plot. The action is not the problem. If the item contributes to the plot in a significant way — the One Ring from Lord of the Rings or the Dragon Balls from the Dragon Ball Series, for example — then it isn’t a MacGuffin. But if the item is inert and chased mainly because the characters want it, then it is Read More ›

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Is AI Sentient? Where’s the Economy Headed? Join Me at COSM 2022!

We’ll find out together from a remarkable lineup of insightful movers, shakers, and thinkers

Where is the U.S. economy headed in the next year? Is decoupling from China realistic, or even possible? Is our country ready for widescale electric vehicle adoption? And what are the cutting-edge technologies that will change the world? These are just a few of the questions we will grapple with at COSM 2022. Register now for COSM 2022, Nov. 9-11 in Seattle Another is whether AI will ever achieve consciousness. Remember the Google engineer who made national headlines a month ago for claiming that the company’s AI had become sentient? His name is Blake Lemoine, and he will be making his case — in one of his first public appearances — at COSM 2022 in November. We have also added Read More ›

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unicorn

Why People Keep Investing in Cool Companies That Lose Money

If money is all that matters, a beautiful loser is still a loser,… But wait. IS money all that matters when we are buying unicorns (exciting startups)?

Recently, we’ve been looking at unicorns — those tech companies that are just so Now! that, like Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash, they are part of our everyday conversation. But as Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk have noted, they don’t make money. And seldom or never have. For years on end. The recent downturn could mean some don’t survive. So Mind Matters News asked Dr. Funk, “Why don’t people notice, year after year, that these companies are not good investments? Is the buzzy idea more important than the financial outcome?“ Here’s what he told us: There are many ways to answer this question. My favourite answer uses Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller’s concept of irrational exuberance. Some of the following words are Read More ›

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Robot Women 2

Science Uprising 10: Asking the Impolite Questions About AI

Specifically about the big AI Takeover. Let's get past the TED talks

In Episode 10 of Science Uprising (September 21, 2022 10:35 min), we get a look at why — despite ultra-fashionable TED Talk-style doomsday claims — computers are not taking over. The short film starts with Sophia the Robot, that some hope will play a big role in health care for seniors: “Hello, world.” (0:13) “What emotion do you feel being awake in life?” “Curious.” Great. (Yikes…!) The film then cuts to the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute’s Nick Bostrom who announces to an enthralled gathering, “Machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make. Machines will then be better at inventing than we are now, as superintelligence with such technological maturity would be extremely powerful and Read More ›

Peter Thiel with George Gilder at COSM 2021

Peter Thiel Will Be Luncheon Keynoter at COSM, November 9

Billionaire venture capitalist Thiel made waves earlier this year, calling Warren Buffett and other investment gurus a “finance gerontocracy”

Some iconic tech venture capitalists go with the flow — and then there’s Peter Thiel: In an age when some computer scientists prophesy that AI will soon rise up and destroy mankind, he says no, that’s not happening; the big story is the End of Privacy. He also sees Big Tech innovation as slowing down, in the sense that most Wow!! new developments are successfully hyped riffs on earlier ones. He goes so far as to say that, contrary to expert views, cryptocurrency is not just a flash in the pan. At Bitcoin 2022, he blasted “Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, Larry Fink as ‘finance gerontocracy.’” That is, they are over the hill though not yet under it. So Thiel is Read More ›

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Groups of people are connected by lines. Interdependence correlation in workflow. Interacting and joining forces with other teams. Interact to complete tasks. Formation of a more complex community.

Step Away From Stepwise Regression (and Other Data Mining)

Stepwise regression, which is making a comeback, is just another form of HARKing — Hypothesizing After the Results are Known

There is a strong correlation between the number of lawyers in Nevada and the number of people who died after tripping over their own two feet. There are similarly impressive correlations between U.S. crude oil imports and the per capita consumption of chicken — and the number of letters in the winning word in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and the number if people killed by venomous spiders. If you find these amusing (as I do), there are many more at the website Spurious Correlations. These silly statistical relationships are intended to demonstrate that correlation is not causation. But no matter how often or how loudly statisticians shout that warning, many people do not hear it. When there is a Read More ›

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Storytelling: The Liar is Revealed! But Does Anyone Still Care?

Stories where the central character lies about something important often waste audience time without building tension

If there was one storytelling device (trope) I would call the bane of all good writing and a general waste of everyone’s time, it’s The Liar Revealed. With that trope, the dramatic tension is driven by the fact that the central character (the protagonist) is not who or what the others suppose. Pretty much every other trope can be made to work properly with the proper setup. But if a writer chooses to go with this cliché, just expect the movie to stop until the trope is finished playing out. Everything is on pause until the truth is revealed. What is the Liar Revealed? Well, as a trope, it’s not just whenever a character lies. The lies are not really Read More ›

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Concept of robots replacing humans in offices

AI Is Not Taking Away Our Jobs — Because It Can’t Do Them

Robert J. Marks talks with KSCJ talk show host Mark Hahn about HAL 9000 and the opportunities and fundamental limits of AI

In the “Top Gun, HAL 9000, and Jobs of the Future” podcast (September 15, 2022), WBC director Robert J. Marks discusses whether AI is sucking up all our jobs with talk show host Mark Hahn, who can be heard on KSCJ in Sioux City, Iowa. Dr. Marks, author of Non-Computable You is a professor of computer engineering at Baylor University and a pioneer of AI swarm intelligence. This is the second half of the podcast. https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/Mind-Matters-Episode-204-Robert-J-Marks.mp3 A partial transcript, notes, and Additional Resources follow. Mark Hahn: Dr. Marks, artificial intelligence is something that many people have fantasized on a science fiction level; many shows have been about that. Of course, in Space Odyssey 2001, HAL took over, and that’s what Read More ›

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Army Aerospace Engineers Work On Unmanned Aerial Vehicle / Drone. Uniformed Aviation Experts Talk, Using Laptop. Industrial Facility with Aircraft for: Surveillance, Warfare Tactics, Air Strike

Marks Tells Medved: Top Gun (2022) Is Way Out of Date

Computer science prof Robert J. Marks argues in Non-Computable You, that in the 21st century, drones offer significant advantages over fighter pilots

In the “Top Gun, HAL 9000, and Jobs of the Future” podcast (September 15, 2022), WBC director Robert J. Marks discusses a theme from his new book Non-Computable You with talk show host Michael Medved: Can drones should replace pilots in warfare? Dr. Marks, a professor of computer engineering at Baylor University, is also the author of The Case for Killer Robots: https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/Mind-Matters-Episode-204-Robert-J-Marks.mp3 A partial transcript, notes, and Additional Resources follow. Michael Medved: Why shouldn’t we be able to replace all those hotshot pilots, like the ones being trained in the movie Top Gun: Maverick — one of the most successful movies ever made, by the way, in terms of its box office receipts? That’s showing pilots doing death-defying, astonishing Read More ›

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Multi ethnic teenagers smiling outdoor making selfie

Egnor: Why More Sex Change Medicine for Teens in US Than Europe?

One factor in the difference between the United States and Europe may be less accurate information in the United States

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor offers a look at the radical trend to medicine and life-altering surgery based on teen identity issues: Despite the logical gibberish, trans-activism has had a frightening impact on medical practice and medical ethics. ‘Gender affirmation’ clinics exist in medical centers across the country, and many clinics offer hormonal treatment and even radical surgery to children and adults. Boston Children’s Hospital — probably the most prominent children’s hospital in the country —  has offered mastectomies to girls as young as 15 for “gender reassignment,” and has offered patients phalloplasty (the surgical creation of a ‘penis’), metoidioplasty (cutting tissue to lengthen the clitoris), creation of a scrotum with testicular implants, hysterectomy, vaginoplasty (amputation of the penis and testicles with construction of a ‘vagina’) Read More ›

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Network connected across planet Earth ,  view from space. Concept of smart wireless communication technology . Some elements of this image furnished by NASA

Google Cloud’s Ankur Jain To Speak at COSM 2022

One of his key initiatives is bringing internet connectivity to less well-served parts of the globe.

Ankur Jain, VP Engineering for Google Cloud for Telecom, Distributed Cloud, and Immersive Stream, will be speaking at COSM 2022, November 9–11 in Bellevue, Washington. Go here to get the Early Adopter rate before September 15 (tomorrow). At work, he has focused on cross-Google programs like cloud computing, mobile communications, 5G, and privacy issues. One of his key initiatives is bringing internet connectivity to less well-served parts of the globe. He noted in 2017, “As people increasingly access the Internet through their mobile devices, mobile operators are now designing their next-generation networks based on many of the same principles that we’ve adopted to power our own networking infrastructure.” In his current position, he leads Google Cloud’s Telco, Distributed Cloud Edge, Read More ›