Possible Minds

Author: John Brockman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525558004
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
Science world luminary John Brockman assembles twenty-five of the most important scientific minds, people who have been thinking about the field artificial intelligence for most of their careers, for an unparalleled round-table examination about mind, thinking, intelligence and what it means to be human. "Artificial intelligence is today's story--the story behind all other stories. It is the Second Coming and the Apocalypse at the same time: Good AI versus evil AI." --John Brockman More than sixty years ago, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener published a book on the place of machines in society that ended with a warning: "we shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions.... The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door." In the wake of advances in unsupervised, self-improving machine learning, a small but influential community of thinkers is considering Wiener's words again. In Possible Minds, John Brockman gathers their disparate visions of where AI might be taking us. The fruit of the long history of Brockman's profound engagement with the most important scientific minds who have been thinking about AI--from Alison Gopnik and David Deutsch to Frank Wilczek and Stephen Wolfram--Possible Minds is an ideal introduction to the landscape of crucial issues AI presents. The collision between opposing perspectives is salutary and exhilarating; some of these figures, such as computer scientist Stuart Russell, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and physicist Max Tegmark, are deeply concerned with the threat of AI, including the existential one, while others, notably robotics entrepreneur Rodney Brooks, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and bestselling author Steven Pinker, have a very different view. Serious, searching and authoritative, Possible Minds lays out the intellectual landscape of one of the most important topics of our time.

Possible Minds

Author: John Brockman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525558012
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Actual Minds, Possible Worlds

Author: Jerome S. BRUNER
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674029011
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Book Description
Drawing on recent work in literary theory, linguistics, and symbolic anthropology, as well as cognitive and developmental psychology Professor Bruner examines the mental acts that enter into the imaginative creation of possible worlds, and he shows how the activity of imaginary world making undergirds human science, literature, and philosophy, as well as everyday thinking, and even our sense of self. - Publisher.

Embodiment and the Inner Life

Author: Murray Shanahan
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199226555
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
To understand the mind and its place in Nature is one of the great intellectual challenges of our time, a challenge that is both scientific and philosophical. How does cognition influence an animal's behaviour? What are its neural underpinnings? How is the inner life of a human being constituted? What are the neural underpinnings of the conscious condition? Embodiment and the Inner Life approaches each of these questions from a scientific standpoint. But it contends that, before we can make progress on them, we have to give up the habit of thinking metaphysically, a habit that creates a fog of philosophical confusion. From this post-reflective point of view, the book argues for an intimate relationship between cognition, sensorimotor embodiment, and the integrative character of the conscious condition. Drawing on insights from psychology, neuroscience, and dynamical systems, it proposes an empirical theory of this three-way relationship whose principles, not being tied to the contingencies of biology or physics, are applicable to the whole space of possible minds in which humans and other animals are included. Embodiment and the Inner Life is one of very few books that provides a properly joined-up theory of consciousness, and will be essential reading for all psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists with an interest in the enduring puzzle of consciousness.

The Book of Minds

Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822044
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Book Description
Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

Natural Language and Possible Minds

Author: Prakash Mondal
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004344209
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
In Natural Language and Possible Minds: How Language Uncovers the Cognitive Landscape of Nature Prakash Mondal attempts to demonstrate that language can reveal the hidden logical texture of diverse types of mentality in non-humans, contrary to popular belief. The widely held assumption in mainstream cognitive science is that language being humanly unique introduces an anthropomorphic bias in investigations into the nature of other possible minds. This book turns this around by formulating a lattice of mental structures distilled from linguistic structures constituting the cognitive building blocks of an ensemble of biological entities/beings. This turns out to have surprising consequences for machine cognition as well. Challenging mainstream views, this book will appeal to cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, linguists and also cognitive ethologists.

The Measure of All Minds

Author: José Hernández-Orallo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316943208
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 632

Book Description
Are psychometric tests valid for a new reality of artificial intelligence systems, technology-enhanced humans, and hybrids yet to come? Are the Turing Test, the ubiquitous CAPTCHAs, and the various animal cognition tests the best alternatives? In this fascinating and provocative book, José Hernández-Orallo formulates major scientific questions, integrates the most significant research developments, and offers a vision of the universal evaluation of cognition. By replacing the dominant anthropocentric stance with a universal perspective where living organisms are considered as a special case, long-standing questions in the evaluation of behavior can be addressed in a wider landscape. Can we derive task difficulty intrinsically? Is a universal g factor - a common general component for all abilities - theoretically possible? Using algorithmic information theory as a foundation, the book elaborates on the evaluation of perceptual, developmental, social, verbal and collective features and critically analyzes what the future of intelligence might look like.

Inventive Minds

Author: Marvin Minsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262039095
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Book Description
Six essays by artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky on how education can foster inventiveness, paired with commentary by Minsky's former colleagues and students. Marvin Minsky was a pioneering researcher in artificial intelligence whose work led to both theoretical and practical advances. His work was motivated not only by technological advancement but also by the desire to understand the workings of our own minds. Minsky's insights about the mind provide fresh perspectives on education and how children learn. This book collects for the first time six essays by Minsky on children, learning, and the potential of computers in school to enrich children's development. In these essays Minsky discusses the shortcomings of conventional education (particularly in mathematics) and considers alternative approaches; reflects on the role of mentors; describes higher-level strategies for thinking across domains; and suggests projects for children to pursue. Each essay is paired with commentary by one of Minsky's former colleagues or students, which identifies Minsky's key ideas and connects his writings to current research. Minsky once observed that in traditional teaching, “instead of promoting inventiveness, we focus on preventing mistakes.” These essays offer Minsky's unique insights into how education can foster inventiveness. Commentary by Hal Abelson, Walter Bender, Alan Kay, Margaret Minsky, Brian Silverman, Gary Stager, Mike Travers, Patrick Henry Winston

Natural Language Processing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

Author: Management Association, Information Resources
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1799809528
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 1704

Book Description
As technology continues to become more sophisticated, a computer’s ability to understand, interpret, and manipulate natural language is also accelerating. Persistent research in the field of natural language processing enables an understanding of the world around us, in addition to opportunities for manmade computing to mirror natural language processes that have existed for centuries. Natural Language Processing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source on the latest concepts, processes, and techniques for communication between computers and humans. Highlighting a range of topics such as machine learning, computational linguistics, and semantic analysis, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for computer engineers, computer and software developers, IT professionals, academicians, researchers, and upper-level students seeking current research on the latest trends in the field of natural language processing.

Intelligence Unbound

Author: Russell Blackford
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118736419
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
Intelligence Unbound explores the prospects, promises, and potential dangers of machine intelligence and uploaded minds in a collection of state-of-the-art essays from internationally recognized philosophers, AI researchers, science fiction authors, and theorists. Compelling and intellectually sophisticated exploration of the latest thinking on Artificial Intelligence and machine minds Features contributions from an international cast of philosophers, Artificial Intelligence researchers, science fiction authors, and more Offers current, diverse perspectives on machine intelligence and uploaded minds, emerging topics of tremendous interest Illuminates the nature and ethics of tomorrow’s machine minds—and of the convergence of humans and machines—to consider the pros and cons of a variety of intriguing possibilities Considers classic philosophical puzzles as well as the latest topics debated by scholars Covers a wide range of viewpoints and arguments regarding the prospects of uploading and machine intelligence, including proponents and skeptics, pros and cons