Aging brains need exercise, not sofas for neurons
Neuroscientist Yuri Danilov reassures seniors, we do not lose neurons as we ageMaking a serious effort to learn keeps neurons healthy. That’s neuroplasticity.
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If AI dumbed us down, would we even know?
Silicon Valley pros face the challenges head-on
The Top Ten AI Hype Stories of 2018, Updated
You can segue to each in the podcast and read the accompanying Mind Matters News story, as well as key updates
Sorry, AI can’t do our thinking for us
J. C. Derrick asked Robert J. Marks whether AI can outthink people or make humans immortal
A Closer Look at Google’s Search Engine Bias
If Google’s CEO honestly believes that there is no political bias, that is, in itself, a big part of the problem
Why Was IBM Watson a Flop in Medicine?
Robert J. Marks and Gary S. Smith discuss how the AI couldn’t identify which information in the tsunami of medical literature actually MATTEREDLast year, the IBM Health Initiative laid off a number of people, seemingly due to market disillusionment with the product.
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Why an AI pioneer thinks Watson is a “fraud”
The famous Jeopardy contest in 2011 worked around the fact that Watson could not grasp the meaning of anythingGary N. Smith explains that a computer’s inability to understand what “it” means in a sentence is because it doesn’t understand what any of the words in the sentence mean.
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When High Tech Must Be Kept Secret
Universities that do national defence research try to manage the tension between intellectual freedom and national securityA plasma physics professor who interpreted the “fundamental research exception” too loosely ended up in jail.
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How Do We Know Our Universe Is Not a Sim World?
It’s an interesting idea, say Bradley fellows, but for a number of reasons, it is not credibleThe computer sim universe seems to be a way of dealing with the massive evidence of the fine-tuning of our universe without invoking traditional philosophy or religion.
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Michael Medved Talks With Robert J. Marks About Animal vs. Human vs. AI Minds
With a glance at unique human creativity
Robert J. Marks: Are There Things About Human Beings That You Cannot Write Code For?
Bradley Center director Marks asks that question, relating the Center’s goals to human aspirations“I think the most interesting and the most testable thing humans can do that you can't write code for is creativity,” Dr. Marks told the gathering. Understanding AI properly should lead to celebration rather than fear.
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SXSW 2019: Grappling with AI’s immense culture shifts
Panelists Robert J. Marks and Jay Richards spot the human advantage in an AI-driven cultureFrom homeschooled teens to high-tech entrepreneurs to retired doctors to University of Texas students, Christ Church was full of Austinites trying to understand what the rapid growth of AI technologies means for their future.
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What Do Thoughts Weigh?
Robert Marks thrashes out with Michael Medved why our minds are neither meat nor softwareIn a wide-ranging conversation, Robert Marks and Michael Medved tackle questions like what it means for something to be not just unknown but “unknowable.”
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If Computers Thought Like Fruit Flies, They Could Do More
But even with more sophisticated buzz, there remain "non-computable" things that a computer cannot be programmed to thinkRecently, researchers discovered that fruit flies use a filter similar to a computer algorithm to assess the odors that help them find fruit, only the flies’ tools are more sophisticated: When a fly smells an odor, the fly needs to quickly figure out if it has smelled the odor before, to determine if the odor is new and something it should pay attention to,” says Saket Navlakha, an assistant professor in Salk’s Integrative Biology Laboratory. “In computer science, this is an important task called novelty detection. Computers use a Bloom filter for that, Navlakha, an integrative biologist, explains: When a search engine such as Google crawls the Web, it needs to know whether a website it comes across has previously Read More ›
Robert J. Marks Talks Computers with Michael Medved
Computers can magnify what we do, he says, and that's the real threat
Virtual Railroads and West Virginia Back Roads
AI’s Temptation to Theft Over Honest ToilJust as a train on a rail requires minimal, or indeed no, human intervention, so cars driving on virtual railroads might readily dispense with the human element.
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How Humans Can Thrive in a World of Increasing Automation
Remarks on the purpose and goals of the Walter Bradley Center at its launchAt the official launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, July 11, 2018, design theorist design theorist William Dembski offered three key thoughts on the center’s purpose and goals—and how its work may be evaluated. Dr. Dembski was unable to attend*, so his remarks were read by the Center’s director Robert J. Marks: Good evening. Thank you for attending this launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. In my talk tonight, I’m going to address three points: (1) the importance of its work, (2) its likely impact, and (3) why it is appropriately named after Walter Bradley. First, however, I want to thank friends and colleagues of Seattle’s Discovery Institute for their Read More ›