The periodic table turned 150 earlier this year, or at least March 1 was the 150th anniversary of the publication of Dmitri Mendeleev’s version.Read more…
Science Book Review: The Big Nine – How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity
[The Big Nine] reads like a blend of science fact and fiction as [author Amy] Webb tells us where we’ve been and imagines where we might go.Read more…
Science Corner: When All Else Fails, Quote a British Prime Minister
Listening to the recent debate between human debating champion Harish Natarajan and IBM’s Watson-derived Project Debater, I was amused to hear the AI conclude her remarks with a Benjamin Disraeli quote.Read more…
Science in Review: Decision-Making A Long Time Ago and in a Future Not Far Away
Making decisions is challenging and risky. Why not let someone more intelligent with more information have that responsibility, even if that ‘someone’ is implemented in software.Read more…
Science in Review: On the Couch with Dr. Know
J. Nathan Matias and colleagues took up the possibility of using more sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) to predict mental health outcomes for individuals.Read more…
Science in Review: Meet the New Boss, v4.8.23 of the Old Boss
I commend the whole series [on AI and Christianity] to you; the articles are brief introductions to a variety of topics in artificial intelligence and how they intersect with traditional Christian thinking and concerns, along with resources for more details.Read more…
Science Corner: More Machine Now Than Man
Indeed, it is not hard to imagine a day when computers are deemed to possess comparable intelligence to humans because we have convinced ourselves that our own intellects are entirely computational.Read more…
Science Corner: Siri, Compose a Sonata
One of the benefits of teaching a computer how to do a task like composing music is that it forces us to really understand both how we ourselves accomplish that task and how we know when we’ve succeeded.Read more…
Science Corner: Artificial Intelligence Deploys Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
A little randomness turned out to be a boon to the groupRead more…
Science Corner: Dr. Internet, MD
I’ve consulted Dr. Internet myself, so I figured maybe you have too and you’d want to know about the good doctor’s performance.Read more…
Science Corner: Go with God
What’s more striking to me is how counter-intuitive God’s solution is. No one expected the Messiah to die. No one expected the King of Kings to be coronated at his funeral. What comes naturally to us may not be part of God’s best plan for us.Read more…
Science in Review: The World of Tomorrow, Today
[H]ow a message is framed strongly influences how we respond to the message itself. . . . Tomorrowland doesn’t claim that just changing the kind of science fiction we tell will be enough to address the concerns it has. Read more…
Science Corner: A Vision of Science
Note: This is a spoiler-free comment on Avengers: Age of Ultron. If you have seen any trailers for the film or are at all familiar with the character of Ultron, none of this should be news. Assuming a single weekendRead more…
Science Corner: Which bird gets the LEGO worm?
The tiny worm Caenorhabditis elegans has been a boon to science. Adult worms have a consistent number of cells, and we have been able to work out where each one comes from during the developmental process. They also have aRead more…
Random Notes on Doctor Bot Ed
This post is a patchwork of tattered reflections on a slew of topics ranging from humans behaving like robots to robots behaving like humans, mind-reading technologies, maybe cyborgs and so forth. There is no grand thesis tucked away in aRead more…
Week in Review: Science, Religion, and Waffles Edition
Welcome to this week’s Week in Review! If you have your own link or suggestion, please add it to the comments, or email it to Tom or Mike. From Tom I received a forward of the First Things online surveyRead more…