Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagAI

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Cyborg head using artificial intelligence to create digital interface 3D rendering

Mission Impossible: Don’t Bother Me With Facts

The Tom Cruise action movie is built on faulty AI assumptions, but it's still entertaining

Ever watch a movie with a movie-talker? That’s someone who ruins a show by talking out loud over the audio. More than once, my wife has asked me, “What did he just say?” I usually have no idea because I didn’t understand either. But her question talks over the next few lines of the movie so the interval of me not hearing the audio is prolonged. I occasionally watch a movie with a good friend Lou, a former police officer. Lou’s a movie-talker, especially when we watch police movies. He’ll interrupt the movie with nit-picky comments like: “That’s not a real shotgun. A real shotgun would kick back, and the barrel would angle up after each shot. There was no Read More ›

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Business using smartphone,with wifi icon,business communication social network concept.

Will Wi-Fi 6 and LEOs Be the Real 5G?

Considering the future of mobile networks with George Gilder and Richard Vigilante

In today’s featured COSM video, Richard Vigilante and George Gilder moderate a panel exploring the future of mobile networks. Panelists include Gilad Garon, co-founder and CEO Of ASOCS, and Stephen Cohen, Chief Architect of Worldwide Enterprise Services at Microsoft. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences. This video is just one of many you can find at the Bradley Center’s YouTube page. There you’ll find several lectures, interviews, and panels dealing with issues that range from economics, Big Tech, and artificial intelligence. Notable speakers include 2022 Kyoto Prize winner Carver Mead, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and George Gilder, co-founder of Discovery Institute and author of Life After Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Read More ›

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Launching Space Rocket From Laptop Screen. Generative AI

Creative Computers? Marks and Medved on The Rise of Artificial Intelligence

What can a computer do now and what will it be able to do in the future?

What can a computer do now and what will it be able to do in the future? A remarkable amount of confusion surrounds these questions. On a classic episode of “Great Minds” with Michael Medved, Dr. Robert Marks of Discovery Institute’s Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence casts some very helpful light on the limits of AI. Also consider purchasing Dr. Marks’s book Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will. We’ve been sharing a number of lectures from past COSM conferences and other videos related to artificial intelligence and technology. This video is just one of many you can find at the Bradley Center’s YouTube page. There you’ll find several lectures, interviews, and panels dealing with issues Read More ›

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Defensive wall of the ancient holy Jerusalem

“The Chosen” Will Continue Despite Hollywood Strike

The show about the life of Jesus will get back to business

Despite the actors’ strike, which was announced last Thursday, “The Chosen” series applied for a waiver and was granted quick approval. The show, which details the historical account of Jesus Christ and his band of disciples in ancient Israel, will resume filming this week. The news comes amid massive pushback against Hollywood. Actors, producers, and stunt-performers are joining the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and critiquing the movie industry for unfair wages and for failing to duly reckon with the threat of artificial intelligence (AI). Many blockbuster TV franchises will shut down production, after already being majorly delayed from the initial WGA strike, which began in early May. The cast for “Oppenheimer” left the film’s London premiere early in apparent Read More ›

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Planet earth from space, zoom in to the middle east, Saudi Arabia, world skyline, globe

Why So Blue? Look at the Progress We’ve Made

Even though there are reasons to celebrate, the mainstream narrative hides them

We’ve cited the groundbreaking book Superabundance several times here at Mind Matters, mainly in connection to its co-author, Gale Pooley, a Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty, and a speaker at the 2021 COSM conference, the yearly technology summit that has attracted speakers like Carver Mead, Peter Thiel, and others. Pooley’s co-author, Marian Tupy, who lectured at COSM 2022 on the book, does work on human progress at the Cato Institute, and published a post showing the many ways humanity has benefitted over the last century. He stands opposed to the mainstream approximations of doom that declare our world’s swift-approaching expiration date, writing, The chance of a person dying in a natural catastrophe — earthquake, flood, Read More ›

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Robotic hand study for object manipulation strategy.

Jay Richards Talks Transhumanism and AI

The underlying philosophy of transhumanism should be rejected

Dr. Jay Richards, a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and a friend of the Walter Bradley Center, which publishes Mind Matters, spoke recently at the Acton University conference, discussing both transhumanism and AI. Transhumanists, Richards notes, look at the scope of “cosmic evolution,” see a kind of increasing complexity among the human race, and speculate the next dramatic step: achieving immortality through a mixture of genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Richards described the transhumanist ideology as “anti-human,” but cautioned against having a reactionary response to all new technologies that seem to be involved in transhumanism’s vision, noting that some of them, when analyzed specifically, could have benefits (such as AI). The underlying philosophy of transhumanism, however, should be rejected. Read More ›

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close up portrait photo of humanoid android covered in shiny white grey and black metallic skin blue eyes glowing internal parts westworld style Volumetric Lighting ultrawide shot sharp

Westworld: Episode 5 Review

Mediocre writing made bearable by talented actors

Episode Five opens with Ford talking to one of the parks older droid’s, something he has grown fond of doing over the years. He tells a story of an old Grey Hound he and his brother once had, and explains that one time, they let the dog off the leash. The dog was used to chasing a fake rabbit around the track, so when it saw a cat, it immediately went after it. But after the dog had caught the cat and killed it, he didn’t know what to do. This story obviously implies that Dr. Ford knows the droids are becoming conscious, and it seems as if he is the dog chasing the car and has finally caught it. Read More ›

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JAN 1, 2019 - Los Angeles, CA USA - Los Angeles with Hollywood Sign at sunset seen from Kenneth Hahn Park, LA, CA

Actors Join Hollywood Strike

With 160,000 actors now on strike, Hollywood will effectively shut down.

In a historic moment, over 160,000 TV and movie actors are joining scriptwriters in a Hollywood walkout, per the New York Times. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) initiated a strike in early May, demanding higher pay while expressing concern over the increasing role of artificial intelligence in TV writing. Now, actors are joining in with similar dissent. Brooke Barnes reports, The eyes of the world and, particularly, the eyes of labor are upon us,” Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, said. “What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor. When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, Read More ›

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Accounting.

OpenAI is Now Under Investigation

The Federal Trade Commission wants to know how OpenAI gets their data and how much harm ChatGPT could have

The Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C.) sent a letter to OpenAI, the San Fransisco company responsible for creating ChatGPT, the Large Language Model that captured the world’s imagination in November of 2022. Per the New York Times, the F.T.C. is investigating the AI company’s methods of data acquisition and also plans on measuring the potential harms of AI on society, citing concerns over false information and job replacement. Cecilia Kang and Cade Metz report: In a 20-page letter sent to the San Francisco company this week, the agency said it was also looking into OpenAI’s security practices. The F.T.C. asked the company dozens of questions in its letter, including how the start-up trains its A.I. models and treats personal data. The Read More ›

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software code in whiteboard

Does ChatGPT Pass the Creativity Test?

What does ChatGPT have to do in order to be considered creative?

What is creativity? Where does it come from? Why are some things humans do considered creative, while other things mundane? Can AI be creative? To answer these questions, let’s come up with a definition. Creativity at least means something new has been done. No work that copies what has come before is considered creative.  A Creativity Criteria Just doing something new is not enough either. If it were, then I can easily be creative by flipping a coin 100 times. That specific sequence of coin flips will only occur once in the entire history of humanity. But no one would say I was creative when I flipped a coin. This means creativity has to generate a new insight. However, these two criteria are not adequate, Read More ›

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Futuristic rendering of a human face. Concept of artificial intelligence. 3D render.

AI 2041: Ten Visions of Our Future

What will our world look like in 20 years?

Former president of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, imagines our world in 2041 and how it will be shaped by AI. By gazing toward a not-so-distant horizon, Lee offers urgent insights into our collective future — while reminding readers that, ultimately, humankind remains the author of its destiny. This video is taken from COSM 2021 conference. You can find much more similar content at the Center for Intelligence YouTube page.

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ai, analysis, artificial intelligence, automation, big data, brain, business, cg, cloud computing, communication, computer graphics, concept, creative, cyber, deep learning, digital transformation, ed

Lemoine and Marks: A Friendly Discussion on AI’s Capacities

Marks and Lemoine disagree on whether AI can be sentient

Today’s featured video from the 2022 COSM conference features a distinguished panel of artificial intelligence (AI) experts, include Blake Lemoine and Robert J. Marks. They debate the meaning of artificial intelligence, what the future holds for its application (both positive and negative), and how far AI can be taken in terms of mimicking and even exceeding human capabilities. Lemoine is famous for his claims on AI’s “sentience” and his work at Google on the Large Language Model system “LaMDA.” Marks, on the other hand, appreciates Lemoine’s view but strongly maintains that creativity is a uniquely human capacity, and that machines will never attain consciousness. For more on Marks’s views, consider purchasing his 2022 book Non-Computable You: What You Do That Read More ›

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Diverse friends in movie theater.

Maybe Hollywood Had it Coming?

When TV production becomes this mechanical and impersonal, why shouldn't studios opt for AI?

The writers’ strike in Hollywood continues. In May, the Writers Guild of America started protesting low wages and the potential threat of artificially generated scripts. Large Language Models (LLMs) have only improved in generating text, raising concerns among writers. However, according to an insightful article from Auguste Meyrat of the Acton Institute, Hollywood has been developing a culture that welcomes AI-generated content with its tendency to pressure writers to fit a formulaic narrative structure instead of encouraging them to pursue real creativity and collaboration. Meyrat writes, All this virtually guarantees the use of AI-generated screenplays. After all, if producing a movie is now effectively the same as producing a widget on an assembly line, the human element can be dispensed Read More ›

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social network connection concept, community generativce ai illustration

Marks Interviewed for a Fortune Article

The engineering professor and Mind Matters podcast host said we need to play down the AI hype

The insightful contributions of Walter Bradley Center’s Robert J. Marks continue to gain traction and attention. Marks was interviewed by Fortune magazine on artificial intelligence and its current hype. Marks told Fortune that we’re currently on a “hype curve,” saying: “We’ve always had this hype around A.I.,” Marks told Fortune, referencing the Perceptron. The professor said part of the reason investors and consumers are so caught up in the trend is generative A.I.’s ability to replicate humans. “There’s a lot of psychological aspects to the hype around artificial intelligence,” he noted. Systems like ChatGPT and Bard’s use “seductive optics” and eerie mimicry to appear more intelligent than they really are, said Marks, who is also director of the Walter Bradley Center for Read More ›

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Shaking hands with the future: human and AI collaboration. Man and robot on background of huge data center. Based on Generative AI

Marks: The More Complex the AI, the More It Could Go Wrong

Robert J. Marks's new article discusses how AI's growing complexity makes it harder to regulate

Robert J. Marks, director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence, has a brand new article out over at Newsmax on the complexity of artificial intelligence and how, regardless of how many “band-aids” we put on its problematic outputs, it’s impossible to fully regulate a machine with this level of sophistication. Because AI is not a “slave to the truth,” it always needs improvement and correction by its human users. The problem is that we can’t avoid some of the damages until they’re already wrought. Marks writes, The more complex a system, the greater the number of ways it can respond and the more ways it can go wrong. The greater the number of possible responses, the Read More ›

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Adorable little girl shopping for toys. Cute female in toy store. Happy young girl selecting toy

How a Toddler in a Toy Store Refutes Materialism

This everyday observation yields insight into a fundamental truth

I’m a magnet for materialists. I often get into discussions with people who tell me that the universe is nothing but matter and energy. These folks believe in materialism. They say I’m nutty and wrong to think there is anything else. Something like: “Silly theist! Gods are for kids!” Let’s follow that thought. A grandparent of 11 humans, I’ve journeyed with their parents through the young ones’ toddlerhood many times. There’s a lot to learn about reality from toddlers’ learning and growing. It leads to understanding Toddler Truth. Take a toddler to a game arcade, a toy store, or another kid’s house to play. There’s one thing you can count on hearing: “I want that!” We parents start tuning out Read More ›

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Abstract creative illustration from 3D rendering of female bust figure with flat anonymous face isolated on gradient background in vaporwave style colors.

Blurring the Lines Between Fantasy and Reality

A "Black Mirror" episode illustrates the danger of seeing the world through an AI filter

The dystopian Netflix show Black Mirror featured an episode a few years ago about soldiers tasked with wiping out an apparently mutant adversary. In reality, the soldiers are seeing the world through an AI filter that is casting ordinary human beings as despicable monsters. The AI lessens their hesitations to kill the enemy. An article at Nautilus cited a research group that’s asking how much of that horrifying story could potentially unfold in real time, or is already happening to a certain extent in today’s culture. Social media apps like Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram already use face altering techniques in their apps, allowing users to curate idealized images of themselves. But what happens when, as in the Black Mirror episode, Read More ›

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la hollywood

ChatGPT Isn’t Hollywood’s Only Issue

The deepfakes are only getting more scarily accurate

Deepfakes are a growing threat to acting careers. It’s the other challenge posed by generative AI technologies. In early May, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began a strike in Hollywood opposing both low wages and the intrusion of generative AI like ChatGPT, which critics purport will be used to replace human writers. The strike illustrates the current threat to the Hollywood writing industry, but the looming deepfake apocalypse calls the role of the actual actors into question, too. Tom Hanks jokingly noted that long after he’s gone, AI-generated versions of him will star in films far into the future. Maybe his remarks weren’t so comical after all. While deepfakes, upon close inspection, can be identified, they appear to be Read More ›

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surreal This futuristic new york city is a hub of technological innovation with holographic advertisements robots highspeed trains flying cars and personal drones It is a melting pot of cultures and

Simulating Human Connection with Meta’s “Allie” Chatbot

I can't help but wonder if people will increasingly use chatbots as paltry substitutes for genuine human connection

To anyone who’s been watching and considering the outcomes of the chatbot revolution, virtual sex has seemed all but inevitable. Meta’s AI chatbot LLaMA, which was controversially made open to the public earlier this year, is now being used to generate sex bots. Washington Post reported on the trend, with Pranshu Verma and Will Oremus writing, Allie is an 18-year old with long brown hair who boasts “tons of sexual experience.” Because she“lives for attention,” she’ll “share details of her escapades”with anyone for free. But Allie is fake, an artificial intelligence chatbot created for sexual play — which sometimes carries out graphic rape and abuse fantasies. -Pranshu Verma and Will Oremus, Meta’s new AI is being used to create sex chatbots – The Washington Read More ›

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Building A Human Head In A Directionesque World

Westworld: Episode 3 Review

Here we get to the theory of consciousess

Not too much happens in episode three. It builds off the events set up in episode two. But there is one particular scene that has a couple of interesting ideas we’re going to explore. First, a quick recap of the episode. Dolores hides the gun she found in a dresser drawer, and eventually asks Teddy to teach her to shoot. He does, but unfortunately, not for very long because Dr. Ford has now given him something Teddy’s never had before: a backstory. Ford gives Teddy a nemesis named Wyatt. Teddy was once a part of his gang, and while riding with the outlaw, he committed horrible crimes. Therefore, Teddy is on a quest for redemption and is resolved to finish Read More ›