Your Body Is a Piano Your Mind Plays—Well or Badly
The piano expresses the pianist’s thoughts, not its ownDr. Bradley also spoke about how near-death experiences are creating a challenge for skeptics of the reality of the mind.
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But Could Techno-Immortality Ever Be the Real Thing?
Oxford mathematician John Lennox looks at Ray Kurzweil’s techno-immortality from a Christian perspectiveIn these excerpts from the podcast, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talks with John Lennox about an AI immortality where we are told, for example, that we won’t need tongues because we can tap right into our taste buds.
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Is Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity Now Nearer — or Impossible?
In response to Kurzweil’s talk at the COSM Technology Summit, panelists noted that AI achievements are revolutionary in size but limited by their nature in scopeGeorge Montañez, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College, took issue with Kurzweil’s claim that AlphaGoZero needed no instructions to beat humans at the game of Go: “For a system like this to work, a human must define the incentive structure, also encoding the assumptions.” The sheer power of a computing system does not cause it to do anything at all.
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How You Can Really Know You’re Talking to a Computer
In a lively exchange, computer science experts offer some savvy adviceClaims that a given program has “passed the Turing test” should be treated skeptically because a program can be optimized to pass the Turing test without demonstrating any particular intelligence.
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Can Accountants Survive an AI World?
Accountants, yes. Green eyeshades and masses of paper, mmm, not so muchAI in accounting means that businesses need accountants who can interpret the meaning of the blizzard of numbers more than ever. The successful accountant will increasingly have higher education and show a broad understanding of the business area and environment.
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Why the Brain Is Not at All like a Computer
Seeing the brain as a computer is an easy misconception rather than an informative image, says neuroscientist Yuri DanilovAs soon as you assume that each neuron is a microprocessor, says Danilov, you assume that there is a programmer. There is no programmer in the brain; there are no algorithms in the brain. However, it is "extremely painful" for many people to let go of the idea.
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Do We Actually Remember Everything?
Neuroscience evidence suggests that our real problem isn’t with remembering things but finding our memories when we need themOne of a pioneer neurosurgeon’s cases featured a patient who could, unaccountably, speak ancient Greek. The explanation was not occult but it was surely remarkable for what it shows about memory.
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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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