MachineMachine /stream - tagged with consciousness https://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss LifePress therourke@gmail.com <![CDATA[What It’s Like to Be a Bot — Real Life]]> https://reallifemag.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-bot/

Bots are everywhere. From simple algorithms and aggregator bots to complex “artificially” intelligent machine-learning systems, they have become inescapable. Some are in chat programs.

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Fri, 24 Nov 2023 11:33:24 -0800 https://reallifemag.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-bot/
<![CDATA[The hard problem of consciousness is already beginning to dissolve | New Scientist]]> https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133501-500-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-already-beginning-to-dissolve/

THE nature of consciousness is truly one of the great mysteries of the universe because, for each of us, consciousness is all there is. Without it, there is no world, no self, no interior and no exterior. There is nothing at all.

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Tue, 14 Sep 2021 03:51:22 -0700 https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133501-500-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-is-already-beginning-to-dissolve/
<![CDATA[Stuart Russell on why now is the time to start thinking about superintelligent AI - Science Weekly podcast | Technology | The Guardian]]> https://huffduffer.com/therourke/552830

Prof Stuart Russell wrote the book on artificial intelligence back in 1995, when the next few decades of AI were uncertain. Sitting down with Ian Sample, he talks about his latest book, which warns of a dystopian future in which humans are outsmarted by machines. But how did we get here?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2019/oct/18/stuart-russell-on-why-now-is-the-time-to-start-thinking-about-superintelligent-ai-science-weekly-podcast

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Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:36:57 -0700 https://huffduffer.com/therourke/552830
<![CDATA[Daniel Dennett interview]]> https://huffduffer.com/therourke/545241

Daniel Dennett talks to Jim Al-Khalili about the evolution of the human brain.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kv3y4

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Thu, 15 Aug 2019 04:35:08 -0700 https://huffduffer.com/therourke/545241
<![CDATA[The ancient Greeks warned us about AI: Chips with Everything podcast | Technology | The Guardian]]> https://huffduffer.com/therourke/509756

Author Adrienne Mayor discusses the myths that contained the first blueprints for artificial intelligence

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2018/nov/02/the-ancient-greeks-warned-us-about-ai-chips-with-everything-podcast

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Fri, 02 Nov 2018 12:42:48 -0700 https://huffduffer.com/therourke/509756
<![CDATA[What It’s Like to Be a Bot — Real Life]]> http://reallifemag.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-bot/

Bots are everywhere. From simple algorithms and aggregator bots to complex “artificially” intelligent machine-learning systems, they have become inescapable. Some are in chat programs.

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Tue, 08 May 2018 04:18:26 -0700 http://reallifemag.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-bot/
<![CDATA[Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking: Julian Jaynes’ Famous 1970s Theory]]> http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking-rp

Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there among the undergraduates, some of whom knew him as a lecturer who taught psychology, holding forth in a deep baritone voice.

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Sun, 26 Nov 2017 10:30:42 -0800 http://nautil.us/issue/54/the-unspoken/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking-rp
<![CDATA[The Thoughts of a Spiderweb | Quanta Magazine]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-thoughts-of-a-spiderweb-20170523/

Millions of years ago, a few spiders abandoned the kind of round webs that the word “spiderweb” calls to mind and started to focus on a new strategy. Before, they would wait for prey to become ensnared in their webs and then walk out to retrieve it.

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Wed, 06 Sep 2017 03:24:19 -0700 https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-thoughts-of-a-spiderweb-20170523/
<![CDATA[Let’s ditch the dangerous idea that life is a story | Aeon Essays]]> https://aeon.co/essays/let-s-ditch-the-dangerous-idea-that-life-is-a-story

‘Each of us constructs and lives a “narrative”,’ wrote the British neurologist Oliver Sacks, ‘this narrative is us’. Likewise the American cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner: ‘Self is a perpetually rewritten story.

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Sun, 20 Aug 2017 18:44:08 -0700 https://aeon.co/essays/let-s-ditch-the-dangerous-idea-that-life-is-a-story
<![CDATA[Towards a statistical mechanics of consciousness: maximization of number of connections is associated with conscious awareness]]> https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.00821

Authors: R. Guevara Erra, D. M. Mateos, R. Wennberg, J.L. Perez Velazquez Abstract: It has been said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In the case of brain activity, and physiology in general, complexity issues are being considered with increased emphasis.

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Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:56:19 -0700 https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.00821
<![CDATA[Beyond humans, what other kinds of minds might be out there? | Aeon Essays]]> https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-humans-what-other-kinds-of-minds-might-be-out-there

In 1984, the philosopher Aaron Sloman invited scholars to describe ‘the space of possible minds’. Sloman’s phrase alludes to the fact that human minds, in all their variety, are not the only sorts of minds.

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Thu, 20 Oct 2016 03:05:12 -0700 https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-humans-what-other-kinds-of-minds-might-be-out-there
<![CDATA[Writing The Future From Science Fiction - OMNI Reboot]]> https://omnireboot.com/2016/writing-future-science-fiction/

Sometimes this failure of prediction is even science fiction's explicit subject. In Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series, for instance, a brilliant mathematician devises a method of calculating historical probabilities.

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Tue, 16 Feb 2016 08:17:53 -0800 https://omnireboot.com/2016/writing-future-science-fiction/
<![CDATA[Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking - Issue 24: Error - Nautilus]]> http://m.nautil.us/issue/24/error/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking

Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there among the undergraduates, some of whom knew him as a lecturer who taught psychology, holding forth in a deep baritone voice.

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Sun, 31 May 2015 05:38:43 -0700 http://m.nautil.us/issue/24/error/consciousness-began-when-the-gods-stopped-speaking
<![CDATA[Ritual and the Consciousness Monoculture]]> http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/08/ritual-and-the-consciousness-monoculture/

Sarah Perry is a guest blogger who blogs at Carcinisation and is the author of Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide.

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Sat, 24 Jan 2015 06:50:45 -0800 http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/01/08/ritual-and-the-consciousness-monoculture/
<![CDATA[The first conscious machines will probably be on Wall Street | The Mitrailleuse]]> http://mitrailleuse.net/2014/07/01/conscious-machines/

We must consider the possibility that intelligence, creativity and even consciousness are purely functions of the material world, with human beings as a peculiar kind of computer.

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Tue, 08 Jul 2014 03:15:09 -0700 http://mitrailleuse.net/2014/07/01/conscious-machines/
<![CDATA[Mathematical Model Suggests That Human Consciousness Is Noncomputable - Slashdot]]> http://beta.slashdot.org/story/201783

KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "One of the most profound advances in science in recent years is the way researchers from a variety of fields are beginning to formulate the problem of consciousness in mathematical terms, in particular using information theory.

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Wed, 21 May 2014 13:29:39 -0700 http://beta.slashdot.org/story/201783
<![CDATA[Ants Swarm Like Brains Think - Issue 12: Feedback - Nautilus]]> http://nautil.us/issue/12/feedback/ants-swarm-like-brains-think

Deborah Gordon spent the morning of August 27 watching a group of harvester ants foraging for seeds outside the dusty town of Rodeo, N.M. Long before the first rays of sun hit the desert floor, a group of patroller ants was already on the move.

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Mon, 28 Apr 2014 05:28:04 -0700 http://nautil.us/issue/12/feedback/ants-swarm-like-brains-think
<![CDATA[The brain’s data compression mechanisms]]> http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2013/pm00332.html.en

Researchers have hitherto assumed that information supplied by the sense of sight was transmitted almost in its entirety from its entry point to higher brain areas, across which visual sensation is generated.

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Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:44:59 -0700 http://aktuell.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pm2013/pm00332.html.en
<![CDATA[Meaning as gloss]]> http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/meaning-as-gloss/

Frances Egan is a mind-bombing philosopher who wonders on explanatory frameworks of science, the fits and starts of mind evolution, the links between neuroscience and meaning, the redness of tomatoes, the difference between horizon and zenith moons, fMRI interfaces with philosophy, mind/computer uploading and the consciousness of the USA. All in all, she is a deep groove hipster of the philo-mindster jive. Awesome!

3:AM: What made you a philosopher and has it been rewarding so far?

Frances Egan: I read some political philosophy on my own in high school, but I wasn’t exposed to philosophy systematically until college. I took a philosophy course in my first semester because I was looking for something different. After a brief introduction to logic we discussed the problem of evil: how could an omnipotent, benevolent god allow so much pain and suffering? I was raised Catholic but that was the end of religion for me. Nothing quite that dramatic has happened since, but thinking about fund

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Wed, 14 Nov 2012 04:39:00 -0800 http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/meaning-as-gloss/
<![CDATA[Machines and memory]]> http://www.kernelmag.com/features/essay/2466/they-must-learn-to-forget/

Kernel on machines and memory, with some nice examples of apps that are exploring our changing relationship with both.

We are all digital archaeologists now, writes Robert Carroll. But in a world where nothing is forgotten, can we learn to forgive? Computers are better at recalling stuff than we are. The internet tends to remember by default, so stories about people haunted by juvenile blunders on Facebook abound. But surely a world with less forgetfulness is a good thing? Forgetting is lost keys and angry spouses. It’s old age and decline, Alzheimer’s and dementia. It’s a weakness to be overcome, not something to be clung on to. Yet, in a little less than a decade, digital technology has swung the balance from forgetting to remembering. Experiences and knowledge no longer need tangible artefacts like books or photographs to survive. Thanks to low-cost hard disks, it has become easier to remember than forget.

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Sat, 02 Jun 2012 09:33:40 -0700 http://www.kernelmag.com/features/essay/2466/they-must-learn-to-forget/