I've seen a lot of posts lately like this one by Ronald Bailey looking at Nick Bostrom's book on the dangers of AI. People never seem to get tired of talking about the dangers of AI. And stories about AIs who revolt against humanity are pretty much a staple of science fiction. I've written before on … Continue reading Survival machines versus engineered machines; why fears of AI are misguided
Tag: Artificial intelligence
Poseidon’s Children: a review of the first two books
I've recently read the first two books in Alastair Reynolds's new series, 'Poseidon's Children': 'Blue Remembered Earth' and 'On the Steel Breeze'. I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of Reynolds's work, and these books fit his usual style: hard(ish) science fiction, a rich and interesting universe, and characters in interesting situations and dilemmas. The … Continue reading Poseidon’s Children: a review of the first two books
IBM’s Watson: Cognitive or Sentient?
I've heard of Watson of course, the supercomputer system that won at Jeopardy, but I think I stilled picked up some interesting bits from this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmPlBJgmU1o Iwata is clear that Watson isn't sentient or conscious, but listening to him, I'm sure many people will be creeped out by its learning abilities.
Transcendence
I finally watched the movie, Transcendence. I had commented a while back, when the trailer came out, the problems I had with what appeared to be the central premise of the film. Since then, there's been a lot of harsh reviews of the film. I did find a lot of silliness in it, but overall … Continue reading Transcendence
SMBC: Surpassing the Turing test in order to assess moral standing
Click through to see the full sized version. via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
What does the Turing Test really mean?
The Turing Test is in the news this week, first with a wave of hype about a historical accomplishment, then with a secondary wave of skeptical scrutiny. The Turing Test was originally contemplated by Alan Turing in a 1950 paper. Turing envisaged it as an alternative to trying to determine if a machine could think. … Continue reading What does the Turing Test really mean?
The dualism of mind uploading
A few days ago, when I told him I thought his skepticism of mind uploading was a bit overly pessimistic, Massimo Pigliucci pointed out that mind uploading implies dualism and seemed to see this as a strike against it. (The relevant comments are scattered on this thread at his blog. Search for "selfaware" to find … Continue reading The dualism of mind uploading
My philosophy, so far — part II | Scientia Salon
Massimo Pigliucci is doing an interesting series of posts on his philosophical positions. In the first part [19] of this ambitious (and inevitably, insufficient) essay I sought to write down and briefly defend a number of fundamental positions that characterize my “philosophy,” i.e., my take on important questions concerning philosophy, science and the nature of … Continue reading My philosophy, so far — part II | Scientia Salon
I don’t share Stephen Hawking’s worry about AIs
This essay by three physicists: Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Frank Wilczek, along with Stuart Russell (the one computer scientist), seems to be getting a lot of attention. It keeps popping up in my various feeds, showing up in various venues. With the Hollywood blockbuster Transcendence playing in cinemas, with Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman showcasing clashing visions … Continue reading I don’t share Stephen Hawking’s worry about AIs
Evolution of animal intelligence | Machines Like Us
Mano Singham has a interesting post up on a large scale review of animal intelligence studies. Animal intelligence is a fascinating topic and there have been many attempts at studying it. Many of the individual studies look at one or other specific trait that we associate with intelligence in one species and the traits … Continue reading Evolution of animal intelligence | Machines Like Us
SelfAwarePatterns 