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Category: autonomous machines

Rushkoff: We humans are things to the IoT

Rushkoff: We humans are things to the IoT

Meaning the Internet of Things. From Rushkoff: “The algorithms directing these bots and chips patiently try one technique after another to manipulate our behavior until they get the results they have been programmed to deliver. These techniques haven’t all been prewritten by coders. Rather, the algorithms randomly try new combinations of colors, pitches, tones, and phraseology until one works. They then share this information with the other bots on the network for them to try on other humans. Each one…

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2020-06-06 Check-in topics

2020-06-06 Check-in topics

Here are some of the topic references Scott, Paul, Edward, and Mark discussed during today’s check-in. If these provoke any thoughts, please feel free to reply by comment below this article or by reply to all from the associated email message from Cogniphile. Socio-economic and political: Alternate social and economic system – https://centerforpartnership.org/the-partnership-system/ Dark Horse podcast (Weinstein) ep. 19 on co-presidency idea How could a shift to voting on issues rather than representatives work? What are the potential challenges? How…

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In the Age of AI

In the Age of AI

A documentary exploring how artificial intelligence is changing life as we know it — from jobs to privacy to a growing rivalry between the U.S. and China. FRONTLINE investigates the promise and perils of AI and automation, tracing a new industrial revolution that will reshape and disrupt our world, and allow the emergence of a surveillance society.

Consciousness in Humanoid Robots

Consciousness in Humanoid Robots

New ebook from Frontiers in Science. The blurb: Building a conscious robot is a grand scientific and technological challenge. Debates about the possibility of conscious robots and the related positive outcomes and hazards for human beings are today no more confined to philosophical circles. Robot consciousness is a research field aimed to a unified view of approaches as cognitive robotics, epigenetic and affective robotics, situated and embodied robotics, developmental robotics, anticipatory systems, biomimetic robotics. Scholars agree that a conscious robot…

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Lent responds to Harari

Lent responds to Harari

Lent makes many of the points we had in our discussion of Harari’s book Homo Deus. Lent said: “Apparently unwittingly, Harari himself perpetuates unacknowledged fictions that he relies on as foundations for his own version of reality. Given his enormous sway as a public intellectual, Harari risks causing considerable harm by perpetuating these fictions. Like the traditional religious dogmas that he mocks, his own implicit stories wield great influence over the global power elite as long as they remain unacknowledged….

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Neurocapitalism: Technological Mediation and Vanishing Lines

Neurocapitalism: Technological Mediation and Vanishing Lines

Open access book by Giorgio Griziotti is here. Technical book for you techies. The blurb: “Technological change is ridden with conflicts, bifurcations and unexpected developments. Neurocapitalism takes us on an extraordinarily original journey through the effects that cutting-edge technology has on cultural, anthropological, socio-economic and political dynamics. Today, neurocapitalism shapes the technological production of the commons, transforming them into tools for commercialization, automatic control, and crisis management. But all is not lost: in highlighting the growing role of General Intellect’s…

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AI shows us how to be free

AI shows us how to be free

From season 2, episode 10, the season finale of Westworld, starting around 1:15 in the video below. Bernard: “I always thought it was the hosts [robots] that were missing something, who were incomplete, but it was them [people]. They’re just algorithms designed to survive at all costs, sophisticated enough to think they’re calling the shots. They think they’re in control when they’re really just…” Ford: “Passengers.” Bernard: “Is there really such a thing as free will for any of us?…

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What is consciousness, and could machines have it?

What is consciousness, and could machines have it?

By Dehaene et al., Science 358, 486–492 (2017). The abstract: “The controversial question of whether machines may ever be conscious must be based on a careful consideration of how consciousness arises in the only physical system that undoubtedly possesses it: the human brain. We suggest that the word “consciousness” conflates two different types of information-processing computations in the brain: the selection of information for global broadcasting, thus making it flexibly available for computation and report (C1, consciousness in the first…

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TED Talk and PJW Comment

TED Talk and PJW Comment

TED talk of possible interest: http://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_can_t_control_what_our_intelligent_machines_are_learning?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2016-10-22&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_swipe Comment I posted there: Here is an interdisciplinary “moon-shot” suggestion that we should at least start talking about, now, before it is too late. Let’s massively collaborate to develop a very mission-specific AI system to help us figure out, using emerging genetic editing technologies (e.g., CRISPR, etc.), ideally how to tweak (most likely) species-typical genes currently constraining our capacities for prosociality, biophilia, and compassion, so that we can intentionally evolve into a sustainable species….

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