The Boy Scouts of America used to enjoy a booming membership. But after some significant policy changes and a giant lawsuit, the organization is rapidly declining. In this episode, Robert Marks speaks with former Boy Scout leader Kent Marks on his experience in the organization and the enduring need to help boys navigate life in the digital age. Additional Resources
In a recent assessment of his company’s chatbot products like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman surprisingly opined to an audience at MIT. “I think we’re at the end of the era where [AI is] going to be these … giant [large language] models … We’ll make them better in other ways.” This sobering comment is in contrast to a prophesy by philosopher David Chalmers who cautions about the dangerous future. He says today’s large language AI has a 20% chance of sentience in 10 years. Fired engineer Blake Lemoine goes further. He claims that Google’s LaMDA is already sentient. Such AI hyperbole is not new. Here is a thumbnail sketch of some AI history that sheds light on such claims. Heeding Santayana’s Read More ›
A new book, Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, amplifies human exceptionalism and critiques the view that artificial intelligence will someday replace human beings. According to authors Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith, much of life and work can only be adequately navigated successfully with natural, not computerized, intelligence. They give two reasons for thinking that AI will never exceed human ingenuity: Echoing similar sympathies as Robert J. Marks in his book Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will, Landgrebe and Smith argue that the concept of artificial general intelligence is mathematically impossible. A part of the book’s summary reads: Landgrebe and Smith show how a widespread fear about AI’s potential to bring about radical changes in Read More ›
Artificial intelligence can give unintended and dangerous advice. What is the best way to keep things like the following from happening? ChatGPT falsely reported on a claim of sexual harassment that was never made against me on a trip that never occurred while I was on a faculty where I never taught. ChatGPT relied on a cited Post article that was never written and quotes a statement that was never made by the newspaper. Who’s responsible for these actions? How can AI be controlled to assure such careless responses are eliminated? Read on and you’ll see the answer is obvious. Attorney and Bradley Center Fellow Richard W. Stevens has talked about legal options of Professor Turley in a defamation lawsuit. But what about the Read More ›
The Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared on a 60 Minute segment to discuss state of the art AI, Google’s Bard, and what AI means to humanity. Pichai compared the invention of AI to the creation of fire, claiming it surpassed even great leaps in technology like electricity. When asked the reason, he replied, “It gets to the essence of what intelligence is.” See the clip below: Pichai also discussed some of the dangers posed by AI, such as the potential proliferation of misinformation and false images. ChatGPT, for all its dexterity, still makes mistakes, as Google’s Bard does too, and concern over the ambiguity over the reliability of photographic images will only grow as AI develops. Of course, Pichai may Read More ›
Dawn Wible, the founder of Talk More Tech Less, continues her conversation with Robert J. Marks on digital tech. How can we healthily use technology instead of being manipulated by Big Tech? In this episode, she lays out practical steps people can take to reclaim their time, relationships, and mental health. Additional Resources
Dawn Wible, founder of the digital wellness organization “Talk More Tech Less,” talks with Robert J. Marks about her advocacy for healthy screen time among children and young adults. Phone usage has dramatically increased in the last decade, especially during COVID-19. How can we be healthy and whole in a society so saturated with digital media? Additional Resources
How does excessive social media use affect our perceptions of the real world? Writers Mark Miller and Ben White wrote a piece at Aeon on social media through the perspective of “predictive processing,” a term used in neuroscience and cognition. Predictive processing involves the brain’s capacity to predict error, danger, or some future event, and urge us to act accordingly. (That’s my basic, layman’s understanding of it, full disclosure!) White and Miller use temperature as an example, noting how the body may respond to a change of the environment by closing a window or grabbing a blanket to keep warm. Being able to respond appropriately to our surroundings depends on the accuracy of our mental model of the real world. Read More ›
In this week’s episode, Robert Marks resumes his conversation with tech consultant and expert Jeffrey Funk. They focus on ChatGPT, its value and limits, and the hype that often accompanies new developments in AI. Additional Resources
AI is a tool. In the words of Robert J. Marks from an interview at last year’s COSM conference, it can’t be a “friend or foe,” because it’s not a living entity. It’s something that can be used (or abused). Such a neutral, balanced attitude toward AI is alien to many Big Tech moguls who are pitching AI as the solution to many of the world’s complicated problems. For them, on the flipside of the doomsday alarmists, AI will usher in a new epoch of human progress. They may be partially right about that, but according to this writer at Slate, their hype reflects a commitment to technological “solutionism,” the idea that tech, once adequately suited for the task, can Read More ›
Humans have created technology for centuries. But what happens when we stop using tech and tech starts using us? In this episode, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Andrew McDiarmid sits down with Robert J. Marks to talk about the root meaning of technology, how it has developed, and the ways we can healthily navigate our highly technologized world. Additional Resources
Robert J. Marks wrote a piece at The Daily Caller this week on artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, and the manifold problems of new AI systems like Google’s Bard and older ones such as Amazon’s Alexa. Despite the confidence in new AI coming from Big Tech executives, it makes quite glaring mistakes, although Marks believes AI has its genuine uses and benefits. Snapchat’s chatbot “My AI” gave advice about how to hide the smell of pot and alcohol to someone posing as a disgruntled teenager. Microsoft’s Bing bot professed its love for a tech journalist. A Google app made egregiously racist errors. ChatGPT is also politically biased despite claiming neutrality. Marks writes, Many warn of the future dangers of artificial intelligence. Many Read More ›
You’ve heard about GPT-3, but how about GPT-4? OpenAI has publicly released the new AI program, and researchers have already claimed that it shows “sparks” of human intelligence, or artificial general intelligence (AGI). Maggie Harrison writes at Futurism, Emphasis on the “sparks.” The researchers are careful in the paper to characterize GPT-4’s prowess as “only a first step towards a series of increasingly generally intelligent systems” rather than fully-hatched, human-level AI. They also repeatedly highlighted the fact that this paper is based on an “early version” of GPT-4, which they studied while it was “still in active development by OpenAI,” and not necessarily the version that’s been wrangled into product-applicable formation. -Maggie Harrison, Microsoft Researchers Claim GPT-4 Is Showing “Sparks” Read More ›
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
Robert J. Marks, director of the Walter Bradley Center, was the subject of a new op-ed at Fox News, which featured his unique insights on artificial intelligence and how it can best be used by human beings. Contrary to much of the present alarmism over AI systems like ChatGPT, Marks remains level-headed about AI’s place in today’s world, pushing back against “sci-fi” apocalypticism while at the same time addressing real issues and concerns. Marks said, “No, AI is not going to take over. You’re not going to be its pet in the future. It’s going to be a tool which disrupts society, but we’re still going to be in charge. -Scott Whitlock, AI expert warns of too much ‘hype’: Humans Read More ›
This week, Peter Biles, Writer & Editor for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, wrote a piece for Salvo on ChatGPT and the uniqueness of the human voice in literature and the arts. Biles cites Christina Bieber Lake, professor of English at Wheaton College, from her book Beyond the Story: American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism. Bieber Lake pushes back against the reductionistic worldview of Darwinistic materialism, appealing to the personal nature of the human being and the relationships we share together. Since a computer fails to practice personal consciousness, it also fails to create meaningful literature, which always involves two persons––one person speaking to another. Biles also cites Robert J. Marks’s essential book on the topic Read More ›
This week, Robert J. Marks sat down with technology consultant and retired professor Jeffrey Funk, who contributes often to Mind Matters, usually in tandem with Gary Smith. Marks and Funk talked about tech startups, where the industry is headed, and the exaggerated hype that currently attends the discourse over AI. Funk talked about the various stages of AI development. “AI is not new,” he said. AI is 70 years old. ChatGPT and other generative AI models are based on neural networks, which have become economical through Moore’s Law, through this incredible increase in computing power that has been going on since the 1950s. But it’s slowed dramatically. -Jeffrey Funk, Jeffrey Funk on AI, Startups, and Big Tech | Mind Matters Read More ›
In this podcast episode, technology consultant and author Jeffrey Funk joins Robert J. Marks to talk about the artificial intelligence industry, how it’s used by Big Tech, and AI’s exaggerated hype. How do we respond to AI when technology is changing every year? Additional Resources
Riffing on the popular fascination with AI (artificial intelligence) systems ChatGPT and Bing Chat, two authors in the Los Angeles Times recently declared: We are approaching an era of legitimate dispute about whether the most advanced AI systems have real desires and emotions and deserve substantial care and solicitude. The authors, Prof. Eric Schwitzgebel at UC Riverside, and Henry Shevlin, a senior researcher at the University of Cambridge, observed AI thinkers saying “large neural networks” might be “conscious,” the sophisticated chatbot LaMDA “might have real emotions,” and ordinary human users reportedly “falling in love” with chatbot Replika. Reportedly, “some leading theorists contend that we already have the core technological ingredients for conscious machines.” The authors argue that if or when Read More ›
