But read the fine print: We would need to run many trials of planets in parallel in order to simulate the real conditions in the universe. Yampolskiy concludes, ‘In fact, depending on some assumptions we make regarding multiverse, quantum aspects of biology, and probabilistic nature of Darwinian algorithm such compute may never be available.’”
Artificial Intelligence
Evolutionary computing cannot produce an AI superintelligence
Bartlett: “The interesting thing about this paper is that it shows that the principles demonstrated in the 1990s by Wolpert and Macready still have not really sunk in yet. As their “No Free Lunch” theorems point out, there is no universally good search through any search space.
SwiftKey co-founder: Computers can’t just “evolve” intelligence; cites James Shapiro’s self-organization
In a still-interesting 2017 paper, Ben Medlock talks about the way life forms self-organize: (which computers don’t, really).
New Nature journal on computer science tackles the reproducibility problem
It’s one of the biggest problems in science—and computers are part of the problem.
Eric Holloway: Evolution and artificial intelligence face the same basic problem
Eric Holloway looks at the discussions at the Wistar Institute—which fell down the memory hole in 1967—and recovers Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger (1920–1996)’s main point, that you can’t actually get there from here.
A philosopher wonders if we will end up outsourcing religion and spirituality to AI
Some religions already use robot priests. It has also occurred to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook could stand in for churches.
Philosopher: Why can’t AI have mystical experiences?
[With respect to mystical experiences,] Most traditional theists would say that we are not talking about what Dr. O’Hara seems to think we are talking about.
Computer programmer writes “A.I. Jesus” program to spout “prophecies”
Durendal claims to think that his creation is the right sort of religion for humans and robots over the next few millennia.
Can AI stand in for God? John Lennox comments
John Lennox : I spent most of my life contending with people that think that science replaces God. And I see that as a very foolish argument really. It’s like saying that if you understand how a Ford motor car works, you don’t need to believe in Henry Ford.
Is human biology too complicated for humans to understand?
Craig Mundie’s dream is to build an AI that rivals human intellect to tackle problems in health care. He hopes to be able to customize medicine for every person by building a virtual proxy for every person. It’s almost like he is asking for biology to play tricks on him…
Multiverse physicist Max Tegmark switches gears; seeks AI to combat “news bias”
Readers may recall him from the four levels of multiverse he advocated in Scientific American in 2003. But forget that. He now thinks there is too much bias in American media and he is working on an AI program to combat it
Could really powerful AI be considered a life form?
An AI theorist makes that case to a technical writer…
Why are infants smarter than computers?
Even infants learn to generalize without programming and do not get stuck in endless feedback loops.
Oxford mathematician: Computers will not out-think humans
Lennox: Our undoubted progress in technology in terms of speed and competence can easily mask the huge barrier that stands in the way of superior intelligent machines — consciousness.
At Mind Matters News: George Montañez on what’s wrong with the Turing Test
Marks: It’s very easy to determine if who you’re talking to is a computer. You just ask them to compute the square root of 30 or something, because a human would take a while to get the square root of 30.