^TagInnovation

Conceptual drawing of room temperature superconductivity, 3D rendering of suspended iron cubes

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post

Author
Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk
Date
August 10, 2023

Categorized
Science

Tagged
Conspiracy theories, corporation, Covid, credibility, Distrust (book by Gary Smith), Innovation, Moon landing, power, science, Technology}

The LK-99 BS Further Undermines the Credibility of Science

_{The rejection or distortion of genuine science can have tragic consequences} _{Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk

August 10, 2023

5

Science}

Social media is afire with reports that South Korean researchers have synthesized a room-temperature and room-pressure superconductor they call K-99. This is the biggest scientific news this year — yes, ChatGPT is now so last year. A representative Wow! from experts has been: “If LK-99 is the real deal, it could be a game-changer for everything from quantum computing and medical imaging to energy and transportation.” Long pursued by physicists and engineers, room-temperature, room-pressure superconductivity would revolutionize electronics and engineering by allowing current to move through wires without any energy loss. Everything will be cheaper and more efficient. Trains will levitate! Alas, the likelihood that this is BS research is very close to 100 percent. In the 110-year history of Read More ›

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post

Author
News
Date
July 18, 2023

Categorized
Economics

Tagged
Commodity, Consciousness, COSM 2021, Creativity, economics, Gale Pooley, George Gilder, Innovation, Learning curves, power, Scarcity, Time-price revolution}

More Gale Pooley and More Population Growth

_{We're living in a time-price revolution} _{News

July 18, 2023

1

Economics}

Countering the prevailing narrative of doom, economist Dr. Gale Pooley shows how the incredible power of learning curves has instead brought about an era of unprecedented abundance. Based on his research into time prices (the money price divided by one’s hourly income), Pooley demonstrates that virtually every commodity is substantially cheaper today than it was decades or centuries ago. We are truly in a time-price revolution. 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 Read More ›

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post

Author
Peter Biles
Date
June 29, 2023

Categorized
Economics

Tagged
Acton Institute, AI, banks, capitalism, Centralization, COVID-19, Creativity, economics, George Gilder, Human exceptionalism, Innovation, Life After Capitalism (book), Samuel Gregg, Technology}

New Review of “Life After Capitalism” Amplifies Book’s Core Themes

_{Returning to the "mind-centered economy" where knowledge is wealth} _{Peter Biles

June 29, 2023

3

Economics}

A new review of George Gilder’s latest book Life After Capitalism from Samuel Gregg highlights the need for the return of the “mind-centered economy,” in which governmental bureaucracies no longer hamper human creativity and imagination. When capitalistic, democratic societies fall for materialistic presuppositions of the world, they end up resembling socialist contexts in which the state is everything and individual men and women are squelched. Gregg writes at the Acton power blog, [Gilder]takes this notion of the free human mind as the decisive factor in driving economic growth and applies it across the board to economic theory, technology, and our understanding of money. Looking at the question of incentives, for example, Gilder points out that they would yield nothing in Read More ›

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post

Author
News
Date
June 29, 2023

Categorized
Technology

Tagged
AI, COSM 2022, Innovation, Nanocosm, Technology}

The New Nanocosm

_{What are the emerging technologies that hold great promise for human prosperity?} _{News

June 29, 2023

1

Technology}

We’ve been highlighting several videos from the 2022 COSM Conference, which took place in Bellevue, Washington last November and featured a number of highly prominent leaders and innovators in technology and science. Today’s video features a panel representing companies on the leading edge of technology applications. They discuss emerging technologies that hold great promise for human prosperity — from the conversion of waste to clean energy; to the production of graphene for a multitude of uses including building materials, lubricants, composites and coatings, sensors, and energy harvesting and storage; to revolutionary nanorobotic machines that can target and kill individual cancer cells. Visit the Center for Intelligence’s YouTube page for many more lectures, panels, and interviews from COSM 2022 and past Read More ›

Beautiful Single white cloud isolated over black background

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post

Author
News
Date
June 16, 2023

Categorized
Technology

Tagged
AI, Artificial Intelligence, Bradley Center, COSM, COSM 2021, Discovery Institute, George Gilder, Innovation, Technology}

A Cloud of Converging Technologies

_{We are entering the roaring 2020s, technologically speaking} _{News

June 16, 2023

1

Technology}

We are on the cusp of a Roaring 2020s. Mark Mills, author of The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020s, proposes that the convergence of revolutions in three technology spheres is unleashing the next great economic boom: the means for accessing and propagating information, the machines that represent the means of production, and the materials domain from which we fabricate everything that exists. Watch him explain and defend his ideas in this informative lecture from the 2022 COSM Conference. 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 Read More ›

Peter Thiel on General Artificial Intelligence at COSM 2021

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post

Author
News
Date
June 11, 2023

Categorized
Technology

Tagged
AI, Big Tech, COSM, Innovation, PayPal, Peter Thiel, United States}

Peter Thiel on Big Tech: A Throwback Lecture

_{Peter Thiel opens up about how artificial intelligence, 5G wireless, and blockchain security are converging in a new era} _{News

June 11, 2023

1

Technology}

We’ve been sharing and promoting several videos from the 2022 COSM conference, but there’s also a wealth of material to be found in the YouTube archives. Today, we’d like to share a lecture from the 2019 conference featuring prominent venture capitalist and technology innovator Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel opens up about how artificial intelligence, 5G wireless, and blockchain security are converging in a new era. In a substantive and wide-ranging discussion with tech guru George Gilder, Thiel outlines how new Internet and monetary systems can remedy the currently torturous relations between the U.S. and China, and how understanding money as time overthrows the prevailing economic and technological models and opens the way to a cornucopian future.

Abstract technology black background. Futuristic digital motherboard texture. Neon blue light

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post

Author
News
Date
June 2, 2023

Categorized
Technology

Tagged
Carver Mead, COSM 2022, Electron, First working transistor from Bell Labs, George Gilder, Innovation, science, Technology}

Carver Mead on the Future of Tech and Science

_{Listen to a classic lecture from Kyoto Prize winner Carver Mead} _{News

June 2, 2023

1

Technology}

We’ve been featuring lectures and interviews from the 2022 COSM conference, but today’s video is from a bit further back. Carver Mead, the winner of the 2022 Kyoto Prize, spoke at a Discovery Institute event about his pioneering work in transistor technology. Mead said, Any time you have a leading-edge technology you’re pushing, you will uncover fundamental questions there aren’t answers to in the literature. When you first look at the literature it it looks overwhelming. It looks like everything’s been done and everything that needed to be known is already known. And it turns out. That’s only an illusion. Watch the full talk below:

Planning, innovation and vision business meeting in a modern office, working on a business marketing strategy. Group, team or staff discussing with sticky notes a schedule for future project together

^{Type
podcast

Author
Robert J. Marks and Jeffrey Funk
Date
March 23, 2023

Tagged
academia, Bell Labs, Dupont, Innovation, Jeffrey Funk, Military, Private corporations, Publication, RCA, research, Robert J. Marks, Technology, Universities}

Where Does Innovation Come From?

_{Robert J. Marks and Jeffrey Funk

March 23, 2023

1}

In a continuation of last week’s conversation, technology experts Jeffrey Funk and Robert J. Marks explore the question of where today’s technological innovation is fostered. Academia? Private corporations? The military? Since many universities now prize publication over innovation, much of the real progress is being made elsewhere. Additional Resources

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 14, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI, Consciousness, Dallas Innovates, Facebook, Futurism, Innovation, John Cormack, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, metaverse, Robots}

Will AI Ever Achieve Consciousness?

_{A former Facebook executive thinks so, assuming progress will eventually get us there} _{News

February 14, 2023

2

Artificial Intelligence}

John Carmack, a former Facebook executive who famously expressed doubts over Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious metaverse project, thinks AI is “on the cusp” of simulating the human brain. Per a report from Futurism, Carmack sat down with Dallas Innovates and talked about the possibilities of AI, as well as its prime obstacle: an inconvenient thing called consciousness. Carmack said, The thing we don’t yet have is sort of the consciousness, the associative memory, the things that have a life and goals and planning. I mean, forget human brains; we don’t even have things that can act like a mouse or a cat.” Despite the far-off dream of developing consciousness in AI, Carmack thinks it’s plausible, given the great strides we’ve seen Read More ›

The face of a businessman and a robot opposite each other look into the eyes. Modern technologies, robot versus human, artificial intelligence, neural networks. 3D render, 3D illustration.

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post

Author
News
Date
December 16, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
C-SPAN, Featured, Innovation, Non-Computable You (book), Robert J. Marks, Sentience}

C-Span asks Marks: How Can AI Be Made Sentient? Innovative?

_{If they were hoping for a computers to be their best buddies, they might be disappointed in the computer engineer’s answer} _{News

December 16, 2022

3

Artificial Intelligence}

Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks was a guest at C-SPAN 2 TV in July, discussing his book, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Institute Press, 2022), and we now have the transcript as well as the video: Here’s the link to the video. Excerpt: Peter Slen: Professor Marks, what’s the missing element in artificial intelligence? To make it sentient. To make it innovative too… The premise of my book is that it will never be there. There are certain things which are non computable. This goes back to the genius Alan Turing in the 1930s. Now, Turing is probably best known for helping crack the Enigma code that helped win World War II Read More ›

Making business plan. Businessperson drawing diagrams. Many graphs and hand drawn diagrams.

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post

Author
News
Date
April 6, 2021

Categorized
Mathematics, Philosophy

Tagged
Automacoin, bitcoin, Featured, G. H. Hardy (1877-1947), George Gilder, Gregory Chaitin, Hector McNeil, Innovation, Marvin Minsky, Omega number, Philosophy (as practical), Robert J. Marks, Srinivasa Ramanujan}

Why Impractical Things Like Philosophy Are Actually Quite Useful

_{Chaitin argues that the human spirit is capable of doing both practical things and impractical things which may have practical consequences later} _{News

April 6, 2021

13

Mathematics, Philosophy}

In last week’s podcast,, “The Chaitin Interview V: Chaitin’s Number,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks continued his conversation with mathematician Gregory Chaitin, best known for Chaitin’s unknowable number. Last time, they looked at how Chaitin’s unknowable number relates to computer pioneer Alan Turing’s vexing halting problem in computer science. This time, they look at the way pure mathematics has a way of being highly practical: It creates a basis for new understanding, leading to technical breakthroughs: This portion begins at 09:50 min. A partial transcript, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Gregory Chaitin: There are always going to be a few of us who like to do practical things. That’s part of my personality too, but there’s also, Read More ›

hand of scientist holding flask with lab glassware in chemical laboratory background, science laboratory research and development concept

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
March 24, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance, Global Technology, Programming

Tagged
China (and South America), Creativity, Gregory Chaitin, IBM (and innovation), Innovation, Innovation (decline), Robert J. Marks, Silicon Valley (decline), South America (and China), Texas (as high tech magnet)}

A Question Every Scientist Dreads: Has Science Passed the Peak?

_{Gregory Chaitin worries about the growth of bureaucracy in science: You have to learn from your failures. If you don’t fail, it means you’re not innovating enough} _{News

March 24, 2021

11

Business and Finance, Global Technology, Programming}

In this week’s podcast, “The Chaitin Interview III: The Changing Landscape for Mathematics,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed mathematician and computer scientist Gregory Chaitin on many things, including whether the great discoveries in science are behind us — not due to lack of creativity or ability on the part of scientists — but to the growing power of corporate and government bureaucracies to stifle research. But then a question arises: Could science, succumbing to the swamp of bureaucracy, be losing that inventive edge? https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-126-Gregory-Chaitin.mp3 This portion begins at 24:56 min. A partial transcript, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Gregory Chaitin: What did an airplane engineers say once in a speech I heard? He said, “In the Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk
Date
March 22, 2021

Categorized
Business and Finance

Tagged
economic growth, Innovation, Invention, patent applications, patent citation, patent databases, patents, Productivity}

Why We Need to Stop Relying On Patents to Measure Innovation

_{The key to a nation's long-run economic growth is the effect of innovation on productivity, and has little to do with patent activity} _{Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk

March 22, 2021

8

Business and Finance}

Patent databases may be a smoke screen that hides the true issues, problems, and dynamics of innovation behind the illusion that innovation is booming—and that patent activity measures the boom. We are said to live in a time of remarkable innovation, with the computer/information revolution often compared to the Industrial Revolution in allowing people to produce more while working less. Economists, consultants, and other business gurus are striving mightily to quantify this revolution and to understand its sources and implications. One popular metric is the number of new patents issued each year. For example, the pace of innovation might be gauged by the fact that there were 669,434 US patent applications and 390,499 new patents awarded in 2019, each triple the Read More ›

Communist Party Monument, Pyongyang, North-Korea

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post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 16, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Economics

Tagged
Bin packing problem, Central Planning, Communism, Featured, halting problem, Innovation, Job shop scheduling problem, Knapsack problem, NP-Complete (NPC) problems, Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), Undecideable problems, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), USSR}

Computer Science Explains Why Communism Can’t Work

_{Successful communism is not only morally and practically flawed, it is mathematically impossible} _{Eric Holloway

November 16, 2020

4

Artificial Intelligence, Economics}

Communism has been the target of many criticisms. The strongest deal with the mismatch between central planning and individuals’ desires for their lives and with the horrific human rights record of communist nations. Some scholars place the toll in human life due to communism at above 100 million in the 20th century. Those are criticisms of the practicality and ethics of communism. But is it also intrinsically flawed at a fundamental mathematical level? It turns out that the answer is yes. The basic idea behind central planning is this: If the central government makes most decisions that, in a freer society, individuals or small communities would make for themselves, more efficiency will follow—and, as a result, more prosperity. It doesn’t Read More ›

Futuristic Science Fiction Bedroom Interior with Planet Earth View in Space Station, 3D Rendering

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post

Author
News
Date
August 8, 2020

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
___longform, 1984 (book), Atomic bomb, Captain Kirk (Star Trek), Charles Hall, China, Clipper of the Clouds (book), George Orwell, H. G. Wells, Helicopter, Hugo Gernsback, Igor Sikorsky, Innovation, Inventions, John Brunner, Jules Verne, Leó Szilárd, Maratin Cooper, Mind at the End of its Tether (book), Mobile phone, Ralph 124C 41+ (book), Robert A. Heinlein, Science fiction, Simon Lake, Stand on Zanzibar (book), Stranger in a Strange Land, The World Set Free (book), totalitarianism, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (book), Waterbed}

When Science Fiction Comes to Life…

_{Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it sometimes grows out of it} _{News

August 8, 2020

7

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

A senior editor at Wired told us a while back that science fiction writer H. G. Wells’s 1914 tale, The World Set Free, formed part of the inspiration for the atomic bomb, exploded over Hiroshima in 1945. … in the novel Wells imagines a new kind of bomb, based on a nuclear chain reaction. In this science fiction story Wells imagines that atomic energy would be discovered in 1933 (20 years in his future), and that the bomb would first explode in 1956. Wikipedia notes, “As fate or coincidence would have it, in reality the physicist Leó Szilárd read the book in 1932, conceived of the idea of nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and filed for patents on it in Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 23, 2019

Categorized
Religion, Work

Tagged
Catholicism, COSM, education, George Gilder, Innovation, Job Displacement, Machines, Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley, University}

Tech Entrepreneur Peter Thiel says Silicon Valley is losing its touch

_{Peter Thiel also compared universities today to the Catholic Church at its worst} _{Denyse O'Leary

October 23, 2019

2

Religion, Work}

About the Big Tech companies, he says, “The story is not that they have done a lot of bad things but that they have not done enough good things. That remains the core challenge of Silicon Valley.”

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
October 14, 2019

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Tagged
Airbnb, Hubert Horan, Innovation, Jeffrey Funk, Uber}

If Big Tech Were Spinning Its Wheels, Would We Know?

_{Not necessarily, says an economics prof who worries about the slowing pace of innovation but not of hype} _{News

October 14, 2019

5

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance}

The slowing Funk refers to is in fundamental innovations like transistors and lasers. The apparent progress often turns out to be in patent applications for a bewildering array of comparatively insignificant mobile phone apps.

Person's face with eyes obstructed by hands

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 25, 2019

Categorized
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience

Tagged
Artificial vision, Blindsight, health and medicine, Innovation, Problem Solving, Robotic limb}