Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryArtificial Intelligence

Digital Brain
Digital brain and mind upload or uploading human thinking concept as a neurological organ being tranformed to digitalized pixels uploaded to virtual space or a cloud server as an artificial intelligence symbol or neuroscience technology in a 3D illustration style.
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 23, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Are We Spiritual Machines? Are We Machines at All?

Inventor Ray Kurzweil proposed in 1999 that within the next thirty years we will upload ourselves into computers as virtual persons, programs on machines
William A. Dembski
April 23, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, here, and here. The event at which I moderated the discussion about Ray Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines was the 1998 George Gilder Telecosm conference, which occurred in the fall of that year at Lake Tahoe (I remember baseball players Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire chasing each other for home run leadership at the time). In response to the discussion, I wrote a paper for First Things titled “Are We Spiritual Machines?” — it is still available online at the link just given, and its arguments remain current and relevant. According to The Age of Spiritual Machines , machine intelligence is the next great step in the evolution of intelligence. That man Read More ›

in-the-futuristic-laboratory-creative-engineer-works-on-the-transparent-computer-display-screen-shows-interactive-user-interface-with-deep-learning-system-artificial-intelligence-prototype-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
In the Futuristic Laboratory Creative Engineer Works on the Transparent Computer Display. Screen Shows Interactive User Interface with Deep Learning System, Artificial Intelligence Prototype.
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 22, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
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A Critical Look at the Myth of “Deep Learning”

“Deep learning” is as misnamed a computational technique as exists.
William A. Dembski
April 22, 2021
2
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my earlier posts, here, here, and here. “Deep learning” is as misnamed a computational technique as exists. The actual technique refers to multi-layered neural networks, and, true enough, those multi-layers can do a lot of significant computational work. But the phrase “deep learning” suggests that the machine is doing something profound and beyond the capacity of humans. That’s far from the case. The Wikipedia article on deep learning is instructive in this regard. Consider the following image used there to illustrate deep learning: Note the rendition of the elephant at the top and compare it with the image of the elephant as we experience it at the bottom. The image at the bottom is rich, Read More ›

changing-the-past-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Changing the Past
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post
Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
April 22, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Social Media, Technocracy
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China: Snitching on Those Who Recall Non-Approved History

The Communist Party of China wants its centennial to proceed this year without memory of the millions dead in the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square
Heather Zeiger
April 22, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Global Technology, Social Media, Technocracy

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell, 1984 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed on July 23, 1921, so is gearing up for the hundredth anniversary of its founding with the theme “Forever Following the Party.” In preparation, the Cyberspace Administration of China has launched a hotline for citizens to report online statements that contradict the Party’s official version of its history. A translation of the announcement from the Central Network Information Office Reporting Center is available on former American diplomat David Cowhig’s blog: One part of the announcement reads: In order to avoid misleading the public with false statements, maintain a clear cyberspace and create a good atmosphere Read More ›

computer questions.jpg
Businessman with a computer monitor head and question marks
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 21, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Artificial Intelligence Understands by Not Understanding

The secret to writing a program for a sympathetic chatbot is surprisingly simple…
William A. Dembski
April 21, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve been reviewing philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. See my two earlier posts, here and here. With natural language processing, Larson amusingly retells the story of Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program, in which the program, acting as a Rogerian therapist, simply mirrors back to the human what the human says. Carl Rogers, the psychologist, advocated a “non-directive” form of therapy where, rather than tell the patient what to do, the therapist reflected back what the patient was saying, as a way of getting the patient to solve one’s own problems. Much like Eugene Goostman, whom I’ve already mentioned in this series, ELIZA is a cheat, though to its inventor Weizenbaum’s credit, he recognized from the get-go that it was a cheat. Read More ›

car and bus accident.jpg
Car and bus accident, bumper to bumper
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 20, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming
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Automated Driving and Other Failures of AI

How would autonomous cars manage in an environment where eye contact with other drivers is important?
William A. Dembski
April 20, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Yesterday I posted a review here of philosopher and programmer Erik Larson’s The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. There’s a lot more I would like to say. Here are some additional notes, to which I will add in a couple of future posts. Three of the failures of Big Tech that I listed earlier (Eugene Goostman, Tay, and the image analyzer that Google lobotomized so that it could no longer detect gorillas, even mistakenly) were obvious frauds and/or blunders. Goostman was a fraud out of the box. Tay a blunder that might be fixed in the sense that its racist language could be mitigated through some appropriate machine learning. And the Google image analyzer — well that was just pathetic: either retire the image Read More ›

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Technology and engineering concept
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post
Author
William A. Dembski
Date
April 19, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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Artificial Intelligence: Unseating the Inevitability Narrative

World-class chess, Go, and Jeopardy-playing programs are impressive, but they prove nothing about whether computers can be made to achieve AGI
William A. Dembski
April 19, 2021
10
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Back in 1998, I moderated a discussion at which Ray Kurzweil gave listeners a preview of his then forthcoming book The Age of Spiritual Machines, in which he described how machines were poised to match and then exceed human cognition, a theme he doubled down on in subsequent books (such as The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind). For Kurzweil, it is inevitable that machines will match and then exceed us: Moore’s Law guarantees that machines will attain the needed computational power to simulate our brains, after which the challenge will be for us to keep pace with machines..  Kurzweil’s respondents at the discussion were John Searle, Thomas Ray, and Michael Denton, and they were all to varying degrees critical of his strong Read More ›

two-hr-specialists-man-and-woman-analyzing-the-market-of-alumni-to-boost-the-intern-program-at-international-consulting-company-hiring-new-talented-officers-social-media-hologram-icons-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Two HR specialists man and woman analyzing the market of alumni to boost the intern program at international consulting company. Hiring new talented officers. Social media hologram icons.
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Author
George Bara and Jeffrey Funk
Date
April 19, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Work
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AI’s Future: Combining RPA With AI to Augment Knowledge Workers

The work machines can’t do is usually the rewarding part, both personally and financially
George Bara and Jeffrey Funk
April 19, 2021
6
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Work

Counterterrorism requires analysts to work through millions of Twitter and Facebook messages, YouTube videos, and websites in multiple languages, far too much work for humans. But a combination of AI (artificial intelligence) and RPA (robotic process automation) can help humans do this work, leaving humans in charge of the most complex and important decisions. AI systems can crawl through documents in any language, automatically translating them, extracting names of people and organizations, and doing sentiment analysis of conversations to identify key text to be considered later by humans. This text can be automatically organized into proper bins using RPA, enabling a data processing and analytics pipeline that can handle large amounts of content at speeds never possible in the past. Read More ›

male-hands-holding-steering-wheel-of-a-car-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Male hands holding steering wheel of a car
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post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
April 19, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance
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Do Not Be Fooled: The “Self-Driving” Car Doesn’t Drive Itself

Over-reliance on technology that is not intended to be used without human attention can be deadly
Jonathan Bartlett
April 19, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance

Two people died in a car crash in a Tesla on Sunday morning. While many details are yet to be confirmed, the investigators have confirmed that no one was in the driver’s seat at the time of impact. Additionally, the resulting fire required more than 30,000 gallons of water to extinguish because the batteries continued to reignite. Here at Mind Matters, we want to reiterate to our readers that even though Tesla’s driver assistance system is officially named “Full Self-Driving”, no one should take that to mean that the car can drive itself. We have been fully documenting the problematic nature of Tesla’s self-driving claims for many years. Recently, the hype coming from Tesla has been so problematic that many other outlets have begun Read More ›

kreuzspinne-im-netz-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Kreuzspinne im Netz
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Author
News
Date
April 17, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, Natural Intelligence
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Spiders May Not Know It But They Are Making Music

An MIT researcher has developed an algorithm that translates the delicate vibrations of spider webs into music
News
April 17, 2021
3
Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, Natural Intelligence

One of the presentations at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2021 meeting featured an algorithm that makes music from the analysis of spiders’ webs: “The spider lives in an environment of vibrating strings,” says Markus Buehler, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator, who is presenting the work. “They don’t see very well, so they sense their world through vibrations, which have different frequencies.” Such vibrations occur, for example, when the spider stretches a silk strand during construction, or when the wind or a trapped fly moves the web. Buehler, who has long been interested in music, wondered if he could extract rhythms and melodies of non-human origin from natural materials, such as spider webs. “Webs could be a new source for Read More ›

people on chip.jpg
Tiny people betwixt logic board
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News
Date
April 16, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Science
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Why Did a Prominent Science Writer Come To Doubt the AI Takeover?

John Horgan’s endorsement of Erik J. Larson’s new book critiquing AI claims stems from considerable experience covering the industry for science publications
News
April 16, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Medicine and Health, Science

At first, science writer John Horgan (pictured), author of a number of books including The End of Science (1996), accepted the conventional AI story: When I started writing about science decades ago, artificial intelligence seemed ascendant. IEEE Spectrum, the technology magazine for which I worked, produced a special issue on how AI would transform the world. I edited an article in which computer scientist Frederick Hayes-Roth predicted that AI would soon replace experts in law, medicine, finance and other professions. John Horgan, “Will Artificial Intelligence Ever Live Up to Its Hype?” at Scientific American (December 4, 2020) But that year, 1984, ushered in an AI winter, in which innovation stalled and funding dried up. By 1998, problems like non-recurrent engineering Read More ›

White robot using floating digital network connections with dots and lines 3D rendering
White robot using floating digital network connections with dots and lines 3D rendering
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Author
News
Date
April 15, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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No AI Overlords?: What Is Larson Arguing and Why Does It Matter?

Information theorist William Dembski explains, computers can’t do some things by their very nature
News
April 15, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Yesterday, we were looking at the significance of AI researcher Erik J. Larson’s new book, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do, contrasting it with claims that AI will merge with or replace us. Some such claims are made by industry insiders like Ray Kurzweil. But more often we hear them from science celebs like the late Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins, who, on these topics, are more known than knowledgeable. So why does Larson think they are wrong? He offers two arguments. First, as information theorist William Dembski explains, is that there are some kinds of thinking that, by their nature, computers don’t do: With regard to inference, he shows that a form Read More ›

Intelligent robot machine pointing finger 3D rendering
Intelligent robot machine pointing finger 3D rendering
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post
Author
News
Date
April 14, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Media
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New Book Massively Debunks Our “AI Overlords”: Ain’t Gonna Happen

AI researcher and tech entrepreneur Erik J. Larson expertly dissects the AI doomsday scenarios
News
April 14, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Media
AI researcher and tech entrepreneur Eric J. Larson has just published a book debunking the claims that AI is taking over. Read More ›
sisters-playing-with-wagon-cart-on-the-road-outdoors-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Sisters playing with wagon cart on the road outdoors
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post
Author
Gary Smith
Date
April 9, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind
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Artificial Unintelligence

The failure of computer programs to recognize a rudimentary drawing of a wagon reveals the vast differences between artificial and human intelligence
Gary Smith
April 9, 2021
11
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind

In 1979, when he was just 34 years old, Douglas Hofstadter won a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for his book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which explored how our brains work and how computers might someday mimic human thought. He has spent his life trying to solve this incredibly difficult puzzle. How do humans learn from experience? How do we understand the world we live in? Where do emotions come from? How do we make decisions? Can we write inflexible computer code that will mimic the mysteriously flexible human mind?  Hofstadter has concluded that analogy is “the fuel and fire of thinking.” When humans see, hear, or read something, we can focus on the most salient features, its “skeletal essence.” Read More ›

connect the dots.jpg
Anti social man, business connection or social network concept, miniature people businessman standing on colorful pastel chalk line link and connect between multiple dot or tiers on blackboard
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post
Author
Eric Holloway
Date
April 9, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Philosophy of Mind
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What Is the Essential Feature of Creative Intelligence?

Creative intelligence is easier to describe by what it is not than by what it is. But there is a clue in that very fact…
Eric Holloway
April 9, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Philosophy of Mind

I’ve spent the past couple articles debunking artificial intelligence. It is just as artificial as its name suggests. It takes on the appearance of intelligence through speed but it lacks the fundamental ability to create a well-matched start and end. So a perceptive reader has returned with another good question: “What is creative intelligence?” The reader is right to ask. Yes, telling someone that the exquisite dessert is not celery and not cod liver oil does not help us understand what the dessert itself is. There is a mystery regarding the very nature of human intelligence. Like its antithesis, randomness, creative intelligence is easier to describe by what it is not than by what it is. But, we can try! Read More ›

Shot of Corridor in Working Data Center Full of Rack Servers and Supercomputers with Pink Neon Visualization Projection of Data Transmission Through High Speed Internet.
Shot of Corridor in Working Data Center Full of Rack Servers and Supercomputers with Pink Neon Visualization Projection of Data Transmission Through High Speed Internet.
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post
Author
News
Date
April 7, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Media, Philosophy of Mind
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AI Researcher: Stop Calling Everything “Artificial Intelligence”

It’s not really intelligence, says Berkeley’s Michael Jordan, and we risk misunderstanding what these machines can really do for us
News
April 7, 2021
4
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Media, Philosophy of Mind

Computer scientist Michael I. Jordan, a leading AI researcher, says today’s artificial intelligence systems aren’t actually intelligent and people should stop talking about them as if they were: They are showing human-level competence in low-level pattern recognition skills, but at the cognitive level they are merely imitating human intelligence, not engaging deeply and creatively, says Michael I. Jordan, a leading researcher in AI and machine learning. Jordan is a professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science, and the department of statistics, at the University of California, Berkeley. Katy Pretz, “Stop Calling Everything AI, Machine-Learning Pioneer Says” at IEEE Spectrum (March 31, 2031) Their principal role, he says, is to “augment human intelligence, via painstaking analysis of large Read More ›

businesswoman-protect-wooden-block-fall-to-planning-and-strategy-in-risk-to-business-alternative-and-prevent-investment-insurance-business-risk-control-concept-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Businesswoman protect wooden block fall to planning and strategy in risk to business Alternative and prevent. Investment Insurance ,Business risk control concept,
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post
Author
News
Date
April 5, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics
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Chaitin’s Number Talks To Turing’s Halting Problem

Why is Chaitin’s number considered unknowable even though the first few bits have been computed?
News
April 5, 2021
11
Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics

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) on a variety of things mathematical. Last time, they looked at whether the unknowable number is a constant and how one enterprising team has succeeded in calculating at least the first 64 bits. This time, they look at the vexing halting problem in computer science, first identified by computer pioneer Alan Turing in 1936: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-128-Gregory-Chaitin.mp3 This portion begins at 07:16 min. A partial transcript, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Robert J. Marks: Well, here’s a question that I have. I know that the Omega or Chaitin’s number is based Read More ›

electronics-engineer-works-with-robot-checking-voltage-and-program-response-time-computer-science-research-laboratory-with-specialists-working-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Electronics Engineer Works with Robot Checking Voltage and Program Response time. Computer Science Research Laboratory with Specialists Working.
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 5, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Data Privacy, Military, Surveillance
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Has the United States Lost Silicon Valley?

Once on friendly terms with the U,S, Department of Defense, Silicon Valley must consider the views of its friends in China
Denyse O'Leary
April 5, 2021
8
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Data Privacy, Military, Surveillance

Recently, we learned that China had, for the first time, surpassed the United States in AI patent filings: The development was revealed by Li Yuxiao, Deputy Head of the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies at the 7th World Internet Conference (WIC), reports SCMP. With this, China is now bolstering its position of being a leader in AI. As per the report, China had filed more than 110,000 artificial intelligence patents last year, more than the patents filed by the United States but the number of patents filed by the country has not been disclosed. “China surpasses US for the first time in artificial intelligence patent filings” at TECHregister (November 27, 2020) Now, people have been claiming that innovative competitiveness is Read More ›

thought-trails-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Thought Trails
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post
Author
News
Date
April 4, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
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Why Would a Neuroscientist Choose Panpsychism Over Materialism?

It seems to have come down to a choice between “nothing is conscious” and “everything is conscious”
News
April 4, 2021
7
Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind

A really significant change in brain science in recent years has been the gradual acceptance in mainstream science venues of sympathy for panpsychism — the position that everything is conscious to some degree. Leading neuroscientist Christof Koch, for example, explained last month in MIT Reader: But who else, besides myself, has experiences? Because you are so similar to me, I abduce that you do. The same logic applies to other people. Apart from the occasional solitary solipsist this is uncontroversial. But how widespread is consciousness in the cosmos at large? How far consciousness extends its dominion within the tree of life becomes more difficult to abduce as species become more alien to us. One line of argument takes the principles Read More ›

artificial brain.jpg
Artificial Intelligence digital Brain future technology on motherboard computer. Binary data. Brain of AI. Futuristic Innovative technology in science concept
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post
Author
News
Date
April 3, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind
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How WOULD We Know If an AI Is Conscious?

It might be more complicated than we think. A powerful zombie is still a zombie.
News
April 3, 2021
5
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Neuroscientist Joel Frohlich (pictured) asks us to reflect on the “philosophical zombie.” That’s not the zombie of the late nite frites. It’s an entity that behaves outwardly in every respect like you and me but has no inner experience (think Stepford Wives). Philosopher David Chalmers originated the term in 1996, by way of illustrating why consciousness is a Hard Problem. A powerful computer can crunch through many difficult jobs without any inner life or consciousness. But, Frohlich, who is editor in chief of the science communications website Knowing Neurons, asks, what if we weren’t sure? How would we test that? Trying to determine if a powerful AI is conscious means getting past programming that might enable it to generate plausible Read More ›

teamwork-and-brainstorming-concept-with-businessmen-that-share-an-idea-with-a-lamp-concept-of-startup-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Teamwork and brainstorming concept with businessmen that share an idea with a lamp. Concept of startup
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post
Author
News
Date
March 30, 2021
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Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Mathematics
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Why Human Creativity Is Not Computable

There is a paradox involved with computers and human creativity, something like Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems or the Smallest Uninteresting Number
News
March 30, 2021
12
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Mathematics

In last week’s podcast, “The Chaitin Interview IV: Knowability and Unknowability,” Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed mathematician Gregory Chaitin, best known for Chaitin’s Unknowable Number, on a number of things, including whether computers can show creativity. Chaitin has thought a lot about that: https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/Mind-Matters-127-Gregory-Chaitin.mp3 This portion begins at 21:34 min. A partial transcript, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Robert J. Marks: We’re talking, just in general, about the unknowable. Roger Penrose recently won a Nobel Prize for his work with Stephen Hawking on black hole theory. He also wrote a book called The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics (1989) and he followed it up with The Shadows of the Mind: Read More ›