Cognition
What Are The Ethical Consequences Of Immortality Technology?
Immortality has gone secular. Unhooked from the realm of gods and angels, it’s now the subject of serious investment – both intellectual and financial – by philosophers, scientists and the Silicon Valley set. Several hundred people have already chosen to be ‘cryopreserved’ in preference to simply dying, as they wait for science to catch up …
To Create A Super-Intelligent Machine, Start With An Equation
Intelligence is a very difficult concept and, until recently, no one has succeeded in giving it a satisfactory formal definition. Most researchers have given up grappling with the notion of intelligence in full generality, and instead focus on related but more limited concepts – but I argue that mathematically defining intelligence is not only possible, …
The Challenge of Abundance: Boredom, Meaning, and the Struggle of Mental Freedom
As technology continues to progress, the possibility of an abundant future seems more likely. Artificial intelligence is expected to drive down the cost of labor, infrastructure, and transport. Alternative energy systems are reducing the cost of a wide variety of goods. Poverty rates are falling around the world as more people are able to make …
The Human Brain’s Bandwidth For Visual Images Is Severely Limited
Imagine you are at Ikea to pick up a sofa for your new flat. You see one you like, a wine-coloured two-seater with big soft cushions. You imagine what it would look like with your current furniture, and decide that’s the sofa you want. As you continue meandering through the store you find a nice …
What Toddlers Can Teach Us About How The Human Brain Does Science
Science as we’ve come to understand it today – that is, conducting experiments using a hypothesis-testing method – has existed only since about the 17th century. But the Homo sapiens brain has been around since the Pleistocene, so how is it that we’ve gotten so good at the kind of science we do in such a short …
Science Has Outgrown The Human Mind And Its Limited Capacities
The duty of man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads and … attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into …
Why Artificial Neural Networks Have A Long Way To Go Before They Can ‘See’ Like Us
Artificial neural networks were created to imitate processes in our brains, and in many respects – such as performing the quick, complex calculations necessary to win strategic games such as chess and Go – they’ve already surpassed us. But if you’ve ever clicked through a CAPTCHA test online to prove you’re human, you know that …
Even If Genes Affect Intelligence, We Can’t Engineer Cleverness
First, let me tell you how smart I am. So smart. My fifth-grade teacher said I was gifted in mathematics and, looking back, I have to admit that she was right. I’ve properly grasped the character of metaphysics as trope nominalism, and I can tell you that time exists, but that it can’t be integrated …
Planes Don’t Flap Their Wings: Does AI Work Like A Brain?
In 1739, Parisians flocked to see an exhibition of automata by the French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson performing feats assumed impossible by machines. In addition to human-like flute and drum players, the collection contained a golden duck, standing on a pedestal, quacking and defecating. It was, in fact, a digesting duck. When offered pellets by …
If Machines Want To Make Art, Will Humans Understand It?
Assuming that the emergence of consciousness in artificial minds is possible, those minds will feel the urge to create art. But will we be able to understand it? To answer this question, we need to consider two subquestions: when does the machine become an author of an artwork? And how can we form an understanding …