Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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3d render gold metallic pie chart icon on dark background concept for analyze data information

Let’s Dispose of Exploding Pie Charts

Pie charts are seldom a good idea. Here's why.

A picture can be worth a thousand words. A graph can be worth a thousand numbers. Unfortunately, pictures and words can be deceptive — either intentionally or unintentionally. One common type of deception involves the use of two- or three-dimensional figures to represent single numbers. For example, the Washington Post once used the figure below to illustrate how inflation had eroded the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar between 1958 and 1978. To make the figure memorable, each of the dollar bills contained a photo of the U.S. President that year in place of the George Washington image that actually appears on the $1 bill. Washington Post, October 25, 1978 Prices more than doubled between 1958 (when Dwight Eisenhower was Read More ›

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the young guy playing an acoustic guitar. Shooting backlit

Oliver Anthony, Music, and Human Exceptionalism

Honest music speaks to the heart and brings us closer together.

If you’ve been online at all for the last few weeks, chances are you’ve come across headlines about the folk/country singer Oliver Anthony, whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” went viral in August. The song, a broad critique of elite power in Washington D.C., (Democrat and Republican) has gained both applause and fierce critique, but for the most part, seems to have deeply resonated with the general American public. Psychologist Jordan B. Peterson recently had Anthony on his podcast, discussing music, entrepreneurship, and virality. One thing is clear about Anthony’s songs: they’re honest, and people are attracted to that. Peterson noted in their conversation that authenticity is a sign of brilliance in artists, and how that sort of honesty Read More ›

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Shelves with books in a bookstore. Education and development. Blurred. Horizontal photo. A great background for your design.

Don’t Censor Western Books

For thousands of men and women, the Western canon served as a lifeline
Today, people on the Left and Right worship politics. What if more conservatives put their wallets toward culture? Read More ›
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Beauty injection concept. Syringe with violet liquid for hypodermic injection.

This Country Just Legalized Euthanasia

The law isn't even limited to those who are terminally ill

Alas. The president of Portugal just signed into law a bill legalizing euthanasia by lethal injection. It is not limited to the terminally ill — which is at least honest, since that is not what euthanasia/assisted suicide is really all about. From the Reuters story: The law specifies that people would be allowed to request assistance in dying in cases when they are “in a situation of intense suffering, with definitive injury of extreme gravity or serious and incurable disease.” It establishes a two-month gap between accepting a request and the actual procedure and makes psychological support mandatory. Strict guidelines and all that jazz. Not only are they unlikely to be strictly enforced but will soon be redefined from protections to barriers, Read More ›

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Reflection of mountain range in lake, Grand Teton National Park

Should We Give Nature “Rights”?

The nature rights movement is more ideological than rational

The major science journals are growing increasingly hard left politically. The prestigious journal Science, in particular, has swallowed progressive ideology–including supporting the “nature rights” movement. The rights of nature–which include geological features–are generally defined as the right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” Nature is, of course, not sentient. So, this campaign is really about granting environmental extremists legal standing to enforce their policy desires through litigation as legal guardians serving nature’s best interests. But the movement has a problem. It is clearly ideological rather than rational. So now, three law professors and a biologist writing in Science urge scientists to promote the agenda by giving courts a scientific pretext to enforce nature rights laws, or even, impose the Read More ›

Boy running through flying books
boy standing on the opened book and looking at other books floating in the air, digital art style, illustration painting

Art, Propaganda, and the Role of the Novelist

Bestselling author Dean Koontz talks fiction, human exceptionalism, and transhumanism with Wesley J. Smith in new podcast episode (Part I)

Dean Koontz is a renowned novelist, known for books such as Devoted, The Big Dark Sky, and Odd Thomas. His books have topped the charts as New York Times bestsellers, and at age 77, he doesn’t plan on quitting the craft of fiction any time soon. He is also a longtime proponent of intelligent design and human exceptionalism, both of which find their footing in his many writings. On September 12th, Koontz was featured on the Humanize Podcast, where he and Wesley J. Smith, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Human Exceptionalism, discussed Koontz’s career as a writer as well as some of the central themes that pervade Koontz’s work. For Part I of this two-part discussion on the Read More ›

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King and queen playing cards

Deepfake of Queen’s Christmas Message Highlights Era of Fake News

The concept is actually an old one and we are not helpless against such deceptions

Elizabeth II is among the longest-serving constitutional monarchs in history (1953–). Britain’s edgy Channel 4 tested the waters with a deepfake Christmas address: In Commonwealth countries like Canada, it is a longstanding custom to listen to Elizabeth’s Christmas Address. So how did the fake fare?: If you have bad eyesight and limited hearing, you might, might, be fooled by the fake Queen on a busy Christmas day. But by the time she starts talking about Netflix and launches into a dance routine, you’d surely know something’s up. Channel 4 makes little effort to hide its deception, but that hasn’t stopped some critics from expressing discomfort with the stunt. Rhett Jones, “First Deepfake Address from the Queen of England Makes Its Read More ›

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Can a Pill Change Your Mind About Basic Issues in Life?

The legalization of mind-altering drugs raises the question in the research community

An Oxford researcher into psychedelics thinks so. Eddie Jacobs offers a disturbing premise, “What if a pill can change your politics or religious beliefs?” The background is that some jurisdictions are contemplating licencing the otherwise illegal psychedelic psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) in the near future as a treatment for depression. He writes, How would you feel about a new therapy for your chronic pain, which—although far more effective than any available alternative—might also change your religious beliefs? Or a treatment for lymphoma that brings one in three patients into remission, but also made them more likely to vote for your least preferred political party? Eddie Jacobs, “What if a Pill Can Change Your Politics or Religious Beliefs?” at Scientific American (October Read More ›

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Stethoscope on an old book of medicine, conceptual image

Should We Really “Listen to Science”? What Should We Listen For?

Politicians who insist that their beliefs represent science might be surprised by the checkered history of that view

This political season, politicians are telling us to “listen to science.” But buyer beware. The politicization of science is a long and sad history of so-called “scientific truths” that were not only mistaken but resulted in tragedy. Those who know a bit of this history should be wary of politicians’ table-pounding claims on topics ranging from climate change to COVID. In a 2003 lecture at Caltech, Michael Crichton, MD (pictured in 2002, courtesy Jon Chase CC BY-SA 3.0), author of great science fiction including Jurassic Park, noted, “science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity.” For example, racism was “settled science” in the early 20th century. So was eugenics, the so-called science Read More ›

Photo by Daniel Olah

Is Google a Cult? Or Does It Just Act That Way?

Project Veritas announces that a new rebel Googler has sent nearly 1000 documents on algorithm bias to the DOJ

While we prepare a news story on Zach Vorhies' revelations, it may be worth asking why one of the world’s largest companies has developed what appears to be the atmosphere of a political cult.

Read More ›
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The US 2016 Election: Why Big Data Failed

Economics professor Gary Smith sheds light on the surprise result

Some of the stuff that made a difference, they couldn’t put in a computer. Some people say, if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t count but sometimes the things that count can’t be measured.

Read More ›
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How Much Difference Can AI Deep Fakes Really Make in Elections?

Maybe not much and that truth should make us uncomfortable
Lawmakers in a free society who are very concerned about deepfakes might want to specify exactly how they are more dangerous than innuendo and insinuation which, by their very nature, are much harder to detect and address. Read More ›
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Retro robots

Does Democracy Demand a War on Twitterbots?

A key concern is that citizens could be induced to vote for a demagogue by Twitterbots spreading fake news.
Underlying much of the angst about the political impact of bots is a basic premise: Most of us need help thinking for ourselves and protection from the many bad influences that we are not able to recognize, the way our betters can. Read More ›
People running away from an invisible hand

Does Technology Favor Tyranny?

Part One: Deconstructing Yuval Harari’s Silly Forecast of AI’s Future Impact

Will infotech and biotech erode human agency, subvert human desires, and render free-market economics obsolete?  At first glance, there looks to be a wide gap between the future of AI and the destruction of democracy. Some futurists claim to have jumped that chasm. In a cheery little column published by the Atlantic, Yuval Noah Harari posits AI will ultimately destroy Read More ›