^TagFeatured

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 15, 2022

Categorized
Addiction, Social Media, Spirituality

Tagged
Andrew McDiarmid, Authentic technology concept, Big Tech's pervasive influence, Featured, Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, Robert J. Marks, Social media addiction and teens, Technological Society (book), Technology (regaining control), Technology word origin}

Taking Our Lives Back from Big Tech, a Step at a Time

_{If we don’t have the time to stop and reflect because we are too busy checking our social media…} _{News

July 15, 2022

13

Addiction, Social Media, Spirituality}

In a recent podcast, “Weaving the Technology of Our Lives” (July 14, 2022), Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks interviewed tech and culture writer Andrew McDiarmid on the deep ways Big Tech governs our lives — ways of which we are often unaware — and concrete steps for taking control back: https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/07/Mind-Matters-195-Andrew-McDiarmid.mp3 Here’s a partial transcript and notes. Additional Resources follow: Robert J. Marks: We have been talking about Jacques Ellul’s concept of technique… Andrew McDiarmid: Well, Jacques Ellul was a French sociologist, theologian, and philosopher of technology … Ellul’s lifetime spanned almost the entire 20th century, 1911 to 1994. He wrote books and articles throughout his career on how he saw technology impacting the “human adventure,” as he Read More ›

Chinese fortune cookies. Cookies with empty blank inside for prediction words. Blue background.

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
July 15, 2022

Categorized
Probability, Sports

Tagged
Baseball and luck, Featured, Home Run Derby Curse, Luck as factor in sports, Max Kaplan, MLB All-Star game 2022, Pete Gammon, Regression to the mean}

We Love Baseball Because of — Not Despite — Lady Luck

_{With a big game approaching, emotions run high so let’s heed some statistical realities} _{Gary Smith

July 15, 2022

5

Probability, Sports}

As we approach the MLB All-Star Game in Los Angeles on July 19, we can be confident of one thing — most current league leaders will not do as well after the break as they did before it. Baseball broadcaster and National Sportswriter of the Year Peter Gammons was among the first to notice this. He wrote in 1989 that, of those baseball players who hit more than 20 home runs before the All-Star break, 90 percent pegged fewer than 20 after the break. Gammons concluded that there was a “second-half power outage,” perhaps because the sluggers got nervous about the possibility of breaking a home run record. More recently, sports forecaster Max Kaplan made a similar observation, which he Read More ›

Group of cute smart dolphins in the ocean

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 14, 2022

Categorized
Biology, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Tagged
Featured, Human brain as optimal size, John Timmer, Michael Denton on brain size, Michel Hofman, Miracle of Man (book), Nicholas Humphrey on brain size, Peter Cochrane, Superintelligence via genetic engineering}

Why Some Life Forms Are Smarter Than Others Is Still a Mystery

_{Brains are not simple so many “just common sense” theories have fallen by the wayside} _{News

July 14, 2022

5

Biology, Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience}

As biologist John Timmer notes at Ars Technica, some life forms appear much more intelligent than others despite having brains of roughly the same size: Animals with very different brains from ours—a species of octopus and various birds—engage with tools, to give just one example. It seems intuitive that a brain needs a certain level of size and sophistication to enable intelligence. But figuring out why some species seem to have intelligence while closely related ones don’t has proven difficult—so difficult that we don’t really understand it. John Timmer, “Brain size vs. body size and the roots of intelligence” at Ars Technica (July 12, 2022) As he points out, some things we might expect to be true — puzzlingly — Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Heather Zeiger
Date
July 13, 2022

Categorized
Computer Security, Crime, Data Privacy, Surveillance

Tagged
Alibaba Group and Shanghai hack, China, China mass surveillance (inherent risk), Dark Web and Shanghai hack, Featured, Shanghai police data hack}

Largest Data Grab Ever Stole Shanghai’s Mass State Surveillance

_{The police, dutiful in monitoring everyone, flunked data security. Now it’s all for sale on the Dark Web} _{Heather Zeiger

July 13, 2022

8

Computer Security, Crime, Data Privacy, Surveillance}

Beijing wants to create a centralized database with personal information on everyone living in China. To do that, the government saves massive amounts of data acquired through surveillance technologies such facial and voice recognition and cell phone monitoring. In a previous article, we saw that the Chinese government’s surveillance network is much more extensive than once thought. However, while the Chinese government has prioritized collecting massive amounts of data, it has not prioritized protecting it. Thus, a hacker has acquired police data files on 1 billion Chinese residents (approximately 23 terabytes of data) from the Shanghai National Police database. The files include name, national ID number, cell phone number, birthdate, birthplace, ethnicity, education level, marital status, and delivery records. They Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 12, 2022

Categorized
Ethics, Law, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Clarence Darrow and free will, Featured, Free will and Holocaust, Free will and law, Free will and morality, Good vs. evil and free will, Jerry Coyne on free will, Michael Egnor, Nuremberg trials, Precrime concept, Retribution and free will, Science fiction}

Michael Egnor: If Evil Exists, So Must Good — and Real Choices!

_{In the podcast, he explains, denial of free will doesn’t mean that there is no guilt but rather that there is no innocence} _{News

July 12, 2022

9

Ethics, Law, Philosophy of Mind}

In a podcast aired July 8, 2022, geoscientist Casey Luskin and neurosurgeon Michael Egnor explore “Evolution and the disturbing consequences of denying free will.” One consequence they look at is pre-crime, that is, treating people who are thought likely to commit an offence as if they had already done so. A partial transcript and notes follows. The podcast is here. Casey Luskin: In the previous podcast, Dr. Egnor, you mentioned how, once somebody denies free will, they really lose the ability to condemn any action that a human takes as morally evil. Everything we did in their view is determined by the forces of nature, and really nobody ought to be at fault for having done anything. These arguments have, Read More ›

3D render beautiful woman computer generated photo realistic to to illustrate the uncanny valley effect

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 12, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Psychology, Robotics

Tagged
Boris Karloff's Frankenstein (1938), Featured, Frankenstein (book), Frankenstein (films), Frankenstein Complex, Kannon (goddess as robot), Mindar (goddess as robot), Non-Computable You (book), Robert J. Marks, Seductive optics and robotics, Sophia the Robot, Thomas Edison's Frankenstein(1910), Uncanny Valley}

AI: The Shadow of Frankenstein Lurks in the Uncanny Valley

_{The fifth and final excerpt from Non-Computable You (2022), from Chapter 6, focuses on the scarier AI hype} _{Robert J. Marks

July 12, 2022

8

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Psychology, Robotics}

Wrapping AI in an impressive physical package can magnify the perceived impact of new technology. Doing so uses seductive optics. The confusing of AI packaging with AI content was evident in media excitement about a Buddhist robot who delivers messages to the faithful. “The world’s first sutra-chanting android deity, modeled after Kannon the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, was introduced to the public last week,” the report reads. The robot can “move its eyes, hands, and torso, make human-like gestures during its speech, and brings its hands together in prayer. A camera implanted in the left eye to focus on a subject gives the impression of eye contact.”1 Technologically speaking, nothing special is happening here. The messages from the Buddhist robot Read More ›

Big eye watching a group of people 3D rendering

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
July 11, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics

Tagged
Arthur M. Okun, Democratic AI Google game, Featured, Google claim that AI would govern better, Hannah Arendt on lies, Karl Marx, Thomas Malthus, William F. Buckley}

AI Would Run the World Better Than Humans, Google Research Claims

_{Don’t believe the headlines: Google’s inhouse game does not show that AI is ready to rule the world} _{Gary Smith

July 11, 2022

5

Artificial Intelligence, Business and Finance, Economics}

Sixty years ago, conservative provocateur William F. Buckley wrote, “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory, than by the Harvard University faculty.” Buckley was a Yale man, but his barb was not intended to compare Harvard to Yale. He later explained: Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise. Now may be the time to update Buckley’s incendiary remarks: I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory, than by a black Read More ›

Website designer working digital tablet and computer laptop with

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 10, 2022

Categorized
Information Theory

Tagged
David Snoke, Featured, Information as erasing its history, Information as physical, Ludwig Boltzmann}

Is Information Physical? It Depends On What You Mean by Physical…

_{Information makes things happen but, curiously, it erases its own history} _{News

July 10, 2022

9

Information Theory}

University of Pittsburgh physics prof David Snoke has thought a lot about the relationship between information and physical reality. For example, why does a zip drive full of critical information — that will cause many changes when people read it — weigh only as much as an empty one? Here’s an excerpt from a lecture he gave (podcast) in 2015 on whether information is physical. Although the talk was intended for a group of scientists, it is lay-friendly and enjoyable: People say, “Well, information is not a real thing,” or “It’s only between humans” or something like that. That’s not the way physicists typically talk. So I want to connect you to some of the work that’s been done over Read More ›

Abstract digital human face. Artificial intelligence concept of big data or cyber security. 3D illustration

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 10, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Religion

Tagged
AI church theology, Anthony Levandowski, Anthony Levandowski and Waymo, Artificial intelligence as religion, Donald Trump (pardons Levandowski), Dualism and AI, Featured, Non-Computable You (book), Ray Kurzweil, Robert J. Marks, Singularity Is Near (book), Way of the Future AI church, Waymo, William Alsupp}

Artificial Intelligence, Worshipped as God, Is No Ordinary Deity!

_{Not only will we be reborn into new, immortal silicon bodies but rules regarding theft don’t seem to apply anymore…} _{Robert J. Marks

July 10, 2022

5

Artificial Intelligence, Religion}

This article was published in The Stream (July 6, 2022) under the title “The Church of Artificial Intelligence of the Future” and is republished with permission. There is a church that worships artificial intelligence (AI). Zealots believe that an extraordinary AI future is inevitable. The technology is not here yet, but we are assured that it’s coming. We will have the ability to be uploaded onto a computer and thereby achieve immortality. You will be reborn into a new, immortal silicon body. Of course, through salvation in Jesus Christ, Christianity has offered a path to immortality for over two thousand years. Someday, we are told, software will write better and better AI software to ultimately achieve a superintelligence. The superintelligence Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Varner
Date
July 9, 2022

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
America Chavez (character in Multiverse of Madness), Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, Book of the Vishanti (in Multiverse of Madness), Defender Strange (in Multiverse of Madness), Dr. Strange (character in Dr. Strange), Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness review, Featured, Multiverse as plot device, Sam Rami}

Dr. Strange’s Multiverse of Madness Features Infinite Problems

_{The extensive edits to Sam Rami’s work as a director have left it riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies} _{Gary Varner

July 9, 2022

10

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

In my review last week, I ranted about the multiverse as a concept in storytelling, and how the Mouse has used it an excuse to turn Wanda Maximoff into a sorry shadow of her former self. If I could describe the problems overall with the movie in one word, that word would be laziness. The multiverse is used as an excuse for all kinds of incoherent nonsense. Before going into detail, it is important to note that Multiverse of Madness (2022) went through massive reshoots before its release. Film aficionados have said that, while there are hints of Sam Rami’s directing style, they were very few in number and it is evident that the edits to the film were extensive. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 8, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Alan Turing, Artificial General Intelligence (as impossible), Bill Meyer, Blake Lemoine and LaMDA, Chinese Room experiment, Featured, Haley Joel Osment, Imitation Game (film), Lovelace test, Mind as non-computable, Non-Computable You (book), Qualia (as uncomputable), Robert J. Marks, Roger Penrose on mind as non-computable, Satya Nadella, Selmer Bringsjord, Spirituality (mind vs. brain)}

Marks: Computers Only Compute and Thinking Needs More Than That

_{Robert J. Marks talks about his new book, Non-Computable You, with Oregon-based talk show host Bill Meyer} _{News

July 8, 2022

13

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

Recently, Bill Meyer interviewed Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks on his Oregon-based talk show about “Why computers will never understand what they are doing,” in connection with his new book, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Institute Press, 2022). We are rebroadcasting it with permission here as (Episode 194). Meyer began by saying, “I started reading a book over the weekend that I am going to continue to eagerly devour because it cut against some of my preconceived notions”: https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/07/Mind-Matters-194-Bob-Marks-Bill-Meyer.mp3 A partial transcript, notes, and Additional Resources follow. Meyer and Marks began by discussion the recent flap at Google where software engineer Blake Lemoine claimed that the AI he was working with was Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 8, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
Aleph in mathematics, Featured, Georg Cantor and infinity, Georg Cantor and Pope Leo XIII, Infinity (infinities differ by size), Infinity (no biggest infinity), Infinity (not real world concept)}

Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others But There’s No Biggest One

_{Georg Cantor came up with an ingenious proof that infinities can differ in size even though both remain infinite} _{Robert J. Marks

July 8, 2022

7

Mathematics}

When a child is asked “what is bigger than infinity,” the response is often “Infinity plus one.” No. Infinity plus one is still infinity. But we can show that the number of points on the interval zero to one is a bigger infinity than the counting numbers are. The first clue is the fact that we can’t count the number of points on a line interval. Try labeling the points on a line as points 1, 2, 3, etc. No matter what scheme you come up with, there will always be some points on the line segment that are not included in your count. Georg Cantor (1845–1918) came up with an ingenious argument to show that the infinite number of Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 7, 2022

Categorized
Economics, Education, Ethics

Tagged
Academic underqualification and cheating, Complete Guide to Contract Cheating (book), Dave Tomar, Essays for hire business, Featured, Student debt and papers for hire, Universities and papers for hire}

Brain for Hire: The Internet Makes Academic Cheating Much Easier

_{Dave Tomar, who wrote essays for students for hire for a decade, then wrote a book about it, thinks 40% of students cheat at least once} _{News

July 7, 2022

5

Economics, Education, Ethics}

For many years, Dave Tomar was that bane that universities always claim to be doing something about but can’t (or anyway never) do — an essay writer for hire. Wait. Wasn’t the internet supposed to end cheating? The search engine reveals all, right?… No. Read on. In The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating in Higher Education (Academic Influence, 2022), Tomar, long a freelance writer and now a plagiarism expert, explains: Yes, that happened when Google became the default search engine in 2000 and the usual copy-paste and essay mill methods no longer worked. But… Cheaters and their enablers would just need to get more creative. If, before, there were just online repositories of essays and the people who curated them, Read More ›

Concept of robots replacing humans in offices

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 7, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Work

Tagged
Artificial intelligence (and creativity), Featured, Non-Computable You (book), Robert J. Marks}

Marks: Forget the Hype, “Thinking Machines” Can’t Replace Humans

_{It’s easy to picture, especially if we don’t know much about computers. And fears are easily exploited. But what are the facts?} _{News

July 7, 2022

3

Artificial Intelligence, Work}

Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks gave a talk in January at the Dallas Conference on Science and Faith on whether a robot will really take your job: “AI Apocalypse: Will Thinking Machines Replace Humans?” Just released on video: As a computer engineer, Marks looks at the pop culture worry a bit differently from some. His skeptical response has also been captured in a just-published book, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Institute Press, 2022). The book makes clear that computers compute. They don’t really do anything that cannot be expressed as a computation. That’s both a strength and a weakness. The ability of an algorithm to sort through billions of online documents in Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 6, 2022

Categorized
Probability

Tagged
Blaise Pascal, Christians who gamble, Exponential law and gambling, Featured, gambling, Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians, Joseph R. Fahey, Keith Taft, Kevin Blackwood, Law of Large Numbers and gambling, Pascal's Wager, Pierre de Fermat, Robert J. Marks, Salvador Cordova, Unfinished Game (book)}

The Holy Rollers: Christians Who Gamble for God

_{Not only have many successful players been Christians, probability theory was developed in part by a philosopher who became a devout Christian} _{News

July 6, 2022

14

Probability}

This last instalment of the writeup of the podcasts with mathematician, computer scientist, engineer — and part-time gambler — Salvador Cordova looks at why and how Christians like himself gamble without cheating. Cordova was one of the crowdfunders of a film on the topic called Holy Rollers (2011). The host is fellow engineer and Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks in “Card Counting Strategies and Dangers” (podcast, June 23, 2022): https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Mind-Matters-News-Episode-192-Sal-Cordova-Episode-4-rev1.mp3 This portion begins at 15:47 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Robert J. Marks: First of all, tell us what the movie was about, and then your involvement. Sal Cordova: It’s about one of the most successful card counting teams, blackjack teams. Read More ›

policewoman holding arrested young woman while her partner talking on portable radio

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
July 6, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Crime, Probability

Tagged
AI and crime prediction claims, Algorithms in criminology, China and crime prediction algorithms, Featured, Minority Report (film), Richard Berk, University of Chicago (AI predicts crime claim)}

Can AI Really Predict Crime a Week in Advance? That’s the Claim.

_{University of Chicago data scientists claim 90% accuracy for their algorithm using past data — but it’s hard to evaluate} _{Gary Smith

July 6, 2022

5

Artificial Intelligence, Crime, Probability}

The University of Chicago recently announced to great fanfare that, Data and social scientists from the University of Chicago have developed a new algorithm that forecasts crime by learning patterns in time and geographic locations from public data on violent and property crimes. The model can predict future crimes one week in advance with about 90% accuracy. University of Chicago Medical Center, “Algorithm Predicts Crime a Week in Advance, but Reveals Bias in Police Response” at Newswise (June 28, 2022) Many thought immediately of the 2002 movie Minority Report, in which three psychics (“precogs”) visualize murders before they occur, thereby allowing special PreCrime police to arrest would-be assailants before they can commit them. Have these University of Chicago researchers made Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 5, 2022

Categorized
Mathematics

Tagged
Base 2 numeral system, Featured, Infinity and irrational numbers, Infinity as not real, Irrational numbers, Irrational numbers and infinity, Library of Congress (encoded in binary), Pi as irrational number, Rational numbers and infinity, Real numbers and infinity}

4. How Almost Any Number Can Encode the Library of Congress

_{That’s a weird, counterintuitive — but quite real — consequence of the concept of infinity in math} _{Robert J. Marks

July 5, 2022

7

Mathematics}

We are used to dealing with simple numbers, like ½ and 2. Most numbers are not that simple. Most numbers, like 0.847859028378490… go on forever and ever without repeating or showing any pattern. Note that such numbers, called irrational numbers, have an infinite number of digits. And there are a lot of them. The number 0.847859028378490… for example differs from the number 0.847859023378490… (See if you can spot the difference.) If two numbers differ only at the billionth decimal and are otherwise the same, they are different numbers. Because an irrational number is infinitely long — and we have seen in the first three posts that weird things happen with infinity — we’d expect something weird to happen with irrational Read More ›

The emergence of a problem and the search for solutions. Many options for solving a complex problem

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
July 5, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AlphaGo and Lovelace test, Ben Thompson, Featured, Lee Sedol, Lovelace test vs. Turing test, Non-Computable You (book), Robert J. Marks, Selmer Bringsjord, Swarm intelligence (bullies vs. dweebs), Swarm intelligence and Lovelace test}

Machines with Minds? The Lovelace Test vs. the Turing Test

_{The answers computer programs give sometimes surprise me too — but they always result from their programming} _{Robert J. Marks

July 5, 2022

9

Artificial Intelligence}

Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Institute Press, 2022) by Robert J. Marks is available here. What follows is an excerpt from Chapter 2. Selmer Bringsjord, and his colleagues have proposed the Lovelace test as a substitute for the flawed Turing test. The test is named after Ada Lovelace. Bringsjord defined software creativity as passing the Lovelace test if the program does something that cannot be explained by the programmer or an expert in computer code.2 Computer programs can generate unexpected and surprising results.3 Results from computer programs are often unanticipated. But the question is, does the computer create a result that the programmer, looking back, cannot explain? When it comes to assessing creativity (and Read More ›

Autonomous vehicles driving over the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 4, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Autonomous vehicles (taxis), Cruise driverless taxis, Driverless taxis, Electrek on driverless cars, Featured, Jonathan Bartlett on driverless cars, Kyle Vogt, San Francisco and driverless taxis, Virtual rails concept for driverless cars}

Driverless Cars Need Smarter Roads: A Tale From San Francisco

_{As Jonathan Bartlett notes, the recent Frisco foul-up shows the need for roads adapted to include self-driving cars} _{News

July 4, 2022

5

Artificial Intelligence}

The future was here, briefly at least. The driverless cars of GM’s autonomous driving unit, Cruise, started charging fares early last month in a limited area in San Francisco. Google’s Waymo also operates driverless cars in Frisco but hasn’t yet started charging fares. With the regulators and the tech media, it certainly seemed like all systems were go: The era of commercial autonomous robotaxi service is here — Cruise officially became the first company to offer fared rides to the general public in a major city as of late Wednesday. The milestone comes after Cruise received official approval from the California Public Utilities Commission in early June to operate driverless in a commercial capacity. Initially, Cruise’s driverless autonomous offering will Read More ›

A group of people playing gambling in a casino

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
July 4, 2022

Categorized
Probability

Tagged
Advantage players working in teams, Big Player (book 1977), Bringing Down the House (book 2003), Casinos and violence, Featured, Kelly criterion in gambling, Ken Uston, Law of Large Numbers and gambling, Robert J. Marks, Rounders (movie 1998), Salvador Cordova, Twenty One (movie 2008)}

Gambling: When advantage players team up, dealer beware!

_{On the other hand, the movie industry has made a good thing from films of the legendary exploits} _{News

July 4, 2022

12

Probability}

Gambling has got to be a slam dunk exciting premise for films. Once again, mathematician, computer scientist, engineer — and part-time gambler — Salvador Cordova joins fellow engineer and Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks to talk about gambling and probability — how hard math types (advantage players) like himself have beaten the odds without cheating. And, this time, they discuss how their skills while working together can wind up as a movie. From Robert J. Marks in Card Counting Strategies and Dangers (podcast): https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Mind-Matters-News-Episode-192-Sal-Cordova-Episode-4-rev1.mp3 This portion begins at 00:23 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow. Robert J. Marks: Have you ever taken advantage of your skills embedding with other people? … Sal Read More ›