Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

Gary Smith

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Bingecast: Is Cheese Consumption Causing Deaths from Tangled Sheets?

Those dealing with data must always remember “If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything.” The answers that computers give must themselves be questioned. Robert J. Marks and Gary Smith address artificial intelligence, spurious correlations, and data research on Mind Matters. Show Notes 01:34 | Introduction to Gary Smith, the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona Read More ›

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The Holy Grail of Artificial Intelligence

Gary N. Smith wonders whether AI will ever achieve common sense

Gary N. Smith and Robert J. Marks continue their discussion of IBM’s Watson and its grim future in health and medicine. The problem, they say, is that Watson amounts to a real world instance of John Searle’s “Chinese Room”. Computers don’t understand Chinese, English, or numbers for that matter. With reference to many of the leading thinkers in AI research, Read More ›

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Time Passes, Love Fades, But What Does “It” All Mean?

Gary Smith and Bob Marks on AI's incomprehension, from IBM's Watson to the Clinton campaign's Ada

Gary N. Smith and Robert J. Marks discuss the inability of AI to understand puns, lyrics, context, or anything at all. From trading futures, predicting political outcomes, and parsing lyrics, the fundamental incomprehension of artificial intelligence is a key to understanding its limitations. Show Notes 02:30 | The AI Delusion by Oxford University Press 03:00 | The importance of knowing Read More ›

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The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacies

Gary Smith discusses his book, the AI Delusion, and how the pressure to publish or perish corrupts research

Bob Marks and Gary Smith offer a range of startling examples of how the pressure to publish drives a lack of rigor — and sometimes honesty — in analyzing and presenting experimental data. The result is a never ending parade of headlines in health and medicine that are unwarranted and often reversed or impossible to replicate. Shownotes 01:00 | Data Read More ›

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Gary Smith: The AI Delusion

“When I Nod My Head, Hit It!” And Other Commands that Confuse AI.

Pablo Picasso said “Computers Are Useless. They Can Only Give You Answers.”  Picasso didn’t go far enough. The answers that computers give must themselves be questioned. This is especially true of AI. Questioning AI is the topic today on Mind Matters. Show Notes 01:27 | Introduction to Gary Smith 02:40 | The AI Delusion 04:50 | Stocks and Data 07:00 Read More ›