I have added a new section, Automation, Robotics, and Education, to the Articles and Blogs page. The new section currently contains six articles related to the adoption of robotics and artificial intelligence in the classroom. I hope you find these resources useful.
What are the implications for education of rapidly accelerating technological development? Watch this short clip of Jack Ma at World Economic Forum. Is he right? What do you think? For a look at some ways automation is already impacting education and a few projections about what is to come, see “Teach Me: Automation’s Role in… Continue reading Automation and Education: Where are we headed?
Many are sounding the alarm about a technology whose necessary components are already available and that could be used in terrifying ways at very little expense. The following video was produced to promote discussion on this issue. It contains upsetting violent imagery, so viewer discretion is advised. Stuart Russell, Anthony Aguirre, Ariel Conn and Max… Continue reading Autonomous Weapons?
On January 10, The Guardian’s Science Weekly released it’s second installment in the “Questioning A.I” series: What Kind of Intelligence will we create? People often express worries about “human-level” Artificial Intelligence, with some predicting it will be here in only a couple of decades with others saying it may never happen. But in this episode Ian… Continue reading Questioning A.I.
I have redesigned the Articles and Blogs page, adding several new resources in the process. If you have not been there in a while, check it out!
In this video from Coldfustion TV, we see an example of self-awareness in a robot. Does this mean consciousness? If it does mean consciousness, is that the same thing as human consciousness, or is there still a difference?
Leave a comment to let us know what you think.
[“Us” means Micheal Palmer and all of the readers of this blog.]
In this 2016 episode of the Singulary Weblog, Nikola Danaylov (Socrates) interviews Professor Richard Jones about the arguments he put forward in Against Transhumanism: The delusion of technological transcendence. The discussion that ensues between the two of them is well worth overhearing.
The two discuss a wide range of topics, including Dr. Jones’ work in nanotechnology, his book on that topic (Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life), his blog by the same title, whether or not technological progress is accelerating, transhumanism and its origins, technological determinism, physics, Frank J. Tipler‘s claim that “the singularity is inevitable”, the importance of molecules as the most fundamental units of biological processing, Aubrey de Grey‘s quest for the indefinite extension of life, the importance of ethics and politics in the road ahead for AI and other aspects of technological advancement, and several others topics.
The episode lasts 1 hour and 17 minutes. Enjoy!
In this TED Talk, Sebastian Thrun and Chris Anderson discuss advances in computer power and the radical shift from software engineers writing extensive rules for computers to machines inferring their own rules.
In this 20 minute program from Tech Insider, Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews Ray Kurzweil, one of today’s foremost transhumanists. They discuss Kurzweil’s proposal that we will reach a technological singularity by 2029.
