Tag Archives: AI

Protecting AI welfare?

Posted on April 27, 2019 by

John Basl and Eric Schwitzgebel have a short article at Aeon arguing that AI (artificial intelligence) should enjoy the same protection as animals do for scientific research.  They make the point that while AI is a long way off from … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , | 55 Comments

Is superintelligence possible?

Posted on April 10, 2019 by

Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers sat down to “debate” the possibility of superintelligence.  I quoted “debate” because this was a pretty congenial discussion. (Note: there’s a transcript of this video on the Edge site, which might be more time efficient … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , , , | 24 Comments

SMBC on what separates humans from machines

Posted on April 7, 2019 by

Source: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (Click through for full sized version and the red button caption.) My own take on this is that what separates humans from machines is our survival instinct.  We intensely desire to survive, and procreate.  Machines, … Continue reading →

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Why we’ll know AI is conscious before it will

Posted on March 5, 2019 by

At Nautilus, Joel Frohlich posits how we’ll know when an AI is conscious.  He starts off by accepting David Chalmers’ concept of a philosophical zombie, but then makes this statement. But I have a slight problem with Chalmers’ zombies. Zombies are … Continue reading →

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AI and creativity

Posted on February 27, 2019 by

Someone asked for my thoughts on an argument by Sean Dorrance Kelly at MIT Technology Review that AI (artificial intelligence) cannot be creative, that creativity will always be a  human endeavor.  Kelly’s main contention appears to be that creativity lies … Continue reading →

Posted in Zeitgeist | Tagged , , | 46 Comments

Is it time to retire the term “artificial intelligence”?

Posted on January 24, 2019 by

Eric Siegel at Big Think, in a new “Dr. Data Show” on the site, explains Why A.I. is a big fat lie: 1) Unlike AI, machine learning’s totally legit. I gotta say, it wins the Awesomest Technology Ever award, forging advancements … Continue reading →

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The dangers of artificial companionship

Posted on January 20, 2019 by

Lux Alpstraum at Undark argues against “Our Irrational Fear of Sexbots”: When most people envision a world where human partners are abandoned in favor of robots, the robots they picture tend to be reasonably good approximations of flesh-and-blood humans. The … Continue reading →

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Is the singularity right around the corner?

Posted on January 6, 2019 by

You’ve probably heard the narrative before.  At some point, we will invent an artificial intelligence that is more intelligent than we are.  The superhuman intelligence will then have the capability to either build an improved version of itself, or engineer … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , , , | 58 Comments

Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor? Is that a relevant question?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by

A while back, Julia Galef on Rationally Speaking interviewed Eric Jonas, one of the authors of a study that attempted to use neuroscience techniques on a simple computer processor. The field of neuroscience has been collecting more and more data, … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , , | 45 Comments

Adding imagination to AI

Posted on July 31, 2017 by

As we’ve discussed in recent posts on consciousness, I think imagination has a crucial role to play in animal consciousness.  It’s part of a hierarchy I currently use to keep the broad aspects of cognition straight in my mind. Reflexes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Mind and AI | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments