http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html This is my take on the singularity: we're not going to see a hard take-off, or a slow take-off, or any kind of AI-mediated exponential outburst. What we're going to see is increasingly solicitous machines defining our environment -- machines that sense and respond to our needs "intelligently". But it will be the intelligence of the serving hand rather than the commanding brain, and we're only at risk of disaster if we harbour self-destructive impulses.We may eventually see mind uploading, but there'll be a holy war to end holy wars before it becomes widespread: it will literally overturn religions. That… ]]> Thu, 23 Jun 2011 02:48:28 -0700 http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gottlieb/limits-science Good sense is the most fairly distributed commodity in the world, Descartes once quipped, because nobody thinks he needs any more of it than he already has. A neat illustration of the fact that gullibility seems to be a disease of other people was provided by Martin Gardner, a great American debunker of pseudoscience, who died this year. In the second edition of his “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science” (1957), Gardner reported that most of the irate letters he received in response to the first edition criticised only one of its 26 chapters and found the rest… ]]> Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:12:00 -0700 http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gottlieb/limits-science http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1432 Back in 1981, R.M. Hare, in his book Moral Thinking, featured a distinction that today I still find useful. Hare admitted that the distinction was not original with him, but he argued that philosophers have not appreciated its importance. The distinction is between critical and “intuitive” (what I call non-critical) thinking. It is still important since it reminds us not to make the mistake of focusing too much attention on the critical level. Philosophers are prone to make this mistake because they like to look critically at the norms their society holds to. Their critical outlook leaves the impression that… ]]> Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:16:00 -0700 http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=1432 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7067989.ece When a famous tantric guru boasted on television that he could kill another man using only his mystical powers, most viewers either gasped in awe or merely nodded unquestioningly. Sanal Edamaruku’s response was different. “Go on then — kill me,” he said.

Mr Edamaruku had been invited to the same talk show as head of the Indian Rationalists’ Association — the country’s self-appointed sceptic-in-chief. At first the holy man, Pandit Surender Sharma, was reluctant, but eventually he agreed to perform a series of rituals designed to kill Mr Edamaruku live on television. Millions tuned in as the… ]]> Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:49:00 -0700 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7067989.ece http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-skepticism-reveals “The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It’s all lies. But they’re entertaining lies, and in the end isn’t that the real truth? The answer is no.” No cubed. The postmodernist belief in the relativism of truth, coupled to the clicker culture of mass media where attention spans are measured in New York minutes, leaves us with a bewildering array of truth claims packaged in infotainment units. It must be true—I saw it on television, at the movies, on the Internet. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, That’s Incredible, The Sixth Sense, Poltergeist,… ]]> Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:26:00 -0700 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-skepticism-reveals