Takehome: Horgan finds that, despite the enormous advances in neuroscience, genetics, cognitive science, and AI, our minds remain “as mysterious as ever.”
Artificial Intelligence
Bill Dembski on why Erik Larson says there will be no AI overlords
Abductive reasoning is part of design theory. Interesting that computers can’t do it…
Bill Dembski on how a new book expertly dissects doomsday scenarios
Dembski: “At the end of the discussion, however, Kurzweil’s overweening confidence in the glowing prospects for strong AI’s future were undiminished. And indeed, they remain undiminished to this day (I last saw Kurzweil at a Seattle tech conference in 2019 — age seemed to have mellowed his person but not his views).” But Larson says it’s all nonsense.
At Scientific American: Why we live in a simulation
This is likely intended as a spoof: “There is nothing in philosophy or science, no postulates, theories or laws, that would predict the emergence of this experience we call consciousness. Natural laws do not call for its existence, and it certainly does not seem to offer us any evolutionary advantages.” But it happens to be true.
Soon there will be computers that think like people?
Not so fast says economics prof Gary Smith: The failure of computer programs to recognize a rudimentary drawing of a wagon reveals the vast differences between artificial and human intelligence.
Can cryogenics (freezing at death) preserve memories or consciousness?
The question cryogenics of the connectome raises is, can we freeze and then recover consciousness itself as opposed to simply saving imprints of a person’s memories? Dr. Frankenstein is now taking your calls.
Eric Holloway: Is AI the next stage of evolution?
Holloway: The complex organization of energy we humans see around us in our verdant fertile nest is enormously atypical. This fundamental law drives right through the heart of any technology, genetic or otherwise, that we might invent …
Richard Lenski and Avida: But wait! Can software evolve?
Richard. W. Stevens is skeptical. He thinks the claims for Avida fail the most basic test. He wrote a simple program, InforMutation,to demonstrate that.
Sabine Hossenfelder explains why she thinks that the computer sim universe is pseudoscience
Hossenfelder: You can approximate the laws that we know with a computer simulation – we do this all the time – but if that was how nature actually worked, we could see the difference. Indeed, physicists have looked for signs that natural laws really proceed step by step, like in a computer code, but their search has come up empty handed.
A Twitter mob made a mistake when it went after an AI industry giant
Pedro Domingos: In my confrontation with the AI cancel crowd, I was particularly helped by the fact that several of the ringleaders are (or call themselves) professional AI ethicists. Some of them are even well-known within their field. When they serially engaged in childish and unethical behavior in full view of their colleagues, they did my job for me.
Claims for random evolution overlook the fact that life needs software as well as hardware
Richard W. Stevens points out that a bird does not fly just because it has wings; it needs a Explanations of the evolution of flight do not account for that.“flight” program in its brain.
How a Silicon Valley psychologist can believe consciousness doesn’t exist
The problem with Riach’s view is that the final level of complexity is immaterial and the computer is just not going there.
Studies claiming to “read minds” debunked
At ScienceDaily: The Purdue researchers originally began questioning the dataset when they could not obtain similar outcomes from their own tests.
Can we teach a computer to feel things? A dialogue…
You are having an experience reading the vital signs. The dog is having quite a different experience living them. You have all of his data and none of his experience. The dog has none of his data and all of his experience. Suppose you took all that data and instantiated it into a robot. Is the robot having your experience or the dog’s? Or neither, actually?
Artificial intelligence cannot produce a Theory of Everything
Gary Smith concludes, “Computers are much better than humans at curve fitting but still far worse at devising models that help us understand and predict the world.”