Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagWisdom

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Artificial neuron in concept of artificial intelligence. Wall-shaped binary codes make transmission lines of pulses and/or information in an analogy to a microchip.

Wrestling with AI: Making More and Better Disciples

AI may have "knowledge," but it lacks wisdom.
Even if it were possible that AI reaches consciousness — it will never have the mind of Christ. Read More ›
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Depressed teenager browsing the internet on his mobile phone as he is lying on his bed in the dark.

Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Wisdom

What manner of harms are we creating?

By Tom Gilson Richard Stevens’ May 11 Stream article, “AI Legal Theories,” suggests we consider making Artificial Intelligence companies legally responsible for the harms they cause. We do that already with consumer products, so in principle it should be possible to do the same with AI. Enforcement would be by civil law. Injured parties would presumably be given standing to sue the source of the harm without having to prove negligence. That gets us somewhere, but not far enough. It settles the question of who is legally responsible. But responsible for what? Specifically, what will we call harm? Who will decide? Based on what standard of wisdom? Stevens gives this example of harm, citing an earlier Stream article by Robert J. Marks: “The Snapchat ChatGPT-powered Read More ›

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Books, old, stacked.

Why Wisdom Is Not and Cannot Be a “Science”

Some have tried to make the pursuit of wisdom a “scientific” endeavour. That is not going well.

A curiosity of our age is the effort to “naturalize” traditional values, to treat them as an outcome of evolution. Evolution we are told, took us in a slightly different direction from that of the apes but it did not put us in contact with a wisdom beyond this world. There is no such thing. That conflicts with traditional accounts of wisdom. Wisdom has been seen as different from “knowledge,” “intelligence” or “street smarts.” They are all very useful, of course. But wisdom is a view of the world from a great distance, which enables clarity about the big issues. For example, from Boethius, about 1500 years ago: Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above Read More ›