“Passing the Turing test–the holy grail of artificial intelligence (AI), whereby a human conversing with a computer can’t tell it’s not human–may now be possible in a limited way with the world’s fastest supercomputer (IBM’s Blue Gene), according to AI experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI is aiming to pass AI’s final exam this fall, […]
Adam Rogers, Senior Editor at Wired, has a tribute to Gary Gygax, inventor of Dungeons & Dragons and much of the social structure of Web2, Geek Love - Sunday New York Times. Gorgeous flow chart, too!
My next book is Rapture For The Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ, due out from Random House in fall of 2008. Amazon has a page up, but no jacket image or description yet. Until the publisher makes a sample chapter available, I’ll post samples here:
Survival Of The Smartest: Will Computers Out-Evolve Us?
(from Rapture […]
Tim O’Reilly comments on Verizon’s latest promise to open its network to all appliances and applications in Static on the Dream Phone - New York Times
“THE Internet and the cellphone are on a collision course . . . In the future, the cellphone and similar wireless devices, not the personal computer, will be the […]
Thirteen days into the Hollywood Writers’ Strike and the blogs have sprung to life with daily accounts of writers walking the lines in Los Angeles. Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin have running accounts of what it’s like out there in the first full-scale WGA strike since 1988. According to the Los Angeles Times, negotiations […]
Fiction
Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson (Winner!)
Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski
Varieties of Disturbance: Stories, by Lydia Davis
Then We Came To The End, by Josua Ferris
Like You’d Understand Anway, by Jim Shepard
Nonfiction
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA,, by Tim Weiner (Winner!)
Brother, I’m Dying, by Edwidge Danticat
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everyting, by Christopher […]
Are the Controversial Comments of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Really So Threatening?
Kurt Andersen, author of the novel HeyDay and host of NPR’s Studio 360, writes in New York Magazine : “For a while now, I’ve fretted that we’re turning into a nation of weenies and permanently enraged censors, that too many of us are afraid […]
Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith. In Scientific American: Searching for God in the Brain, David Biello, writes about scanning 14 Carmelite nuns to see what prayer looks like on a functional MRI brain scan.
Such efforts […]
Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig assesses Viacom’s chances against Google’s YouTube in a New York Times Op-Ed:
The Grokster case thus sent a clear message to lawyers everywhere: You get two bites at the copyright policy-making apple, one in Congress and one in the courts. But in Congress, you need hundreds of votes. In the courts, […]
Andy Raskin’s Modern Romance piece in Sunday’s New York Times is great for those guys whose fathers took time to teach them the ancient rituals of urban survival: The Hunter-Gatherer, Parking Division - New York Times
Steven Pinker, writing for TIME: “The biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It’s not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests […]
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science of how to get machines to do the things they do in the movies.”–Astro Teller
Good post from David Pogue on the use of computer technology in the movie, Firewall, starring Harrison Ford. How many times have you seen the hero grab the nearest laptop and avert catastrophe by hacking […]
Are sites like Wikipedia and Digg.com examples of a new digital Maoism? Is the hive mind overrated?
Edge: BEWARE THE ONLINE COLLECTIVE By Jaron Lanier
Blogger George Dvorsky maintains a list of overloaded post-humanist and transhumanist terms you are supposed to know if you believe in this kooky stuff.
Sentient Developments: Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual: Redux
David Pogue writes about a little-known Google service that provides ad-free info via your cellphone.
Send a text message to 46645 (that’s “Google”; leave off the last E for efficiency). In the body of the message, type what you’re looking for, like “Roger McBride 10025” or “chiropractor dallas tx.” Seconds later, you get a return message […]
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