A short video where I explain the three main questions that I address in my book on Artificial Intelligence, "In Our Own Image".
Blog
Will robots destroy the human race? A debate at the Art Club
The full video of the debate that took place at the Art Club in London on Monday 14th September 2015. For the motion were Ian Yorston (Director of Digital Strategy at Radley College) and Dale Lane (Senior Developer at IBM Watson). Against the motion were Murray Shanahan (Professor of cognitive...
Robots and the future of work
[slideshare id=52986898&doc=robotsandhumans-150920160848-lva1-app6892] In this concept deck I examine some global macroeconomic data from the past sixty years to argue that automation is a major factor behind the increase in global productivity. Cognitive computing and highly adaptable robotics will solve the problem of productivity having flattened out in most industrial countries - the...
Driverless cars should be like horses (not humans)
The new driverless car from Google has no break pedal or steering wheel. And that's because the consensus is that driverless cars should completely replace the human driver. Even blind people would be able to drive them. They will be like elevators: push a button and wait till the thing...
Melancholic android singing
Geminoid F singing True, True, like an ode to the future. How can you not stand still and listen. How can you not feel that she somehow knows what she's singing about....
Writing a cybernetic novel
I would like to define a cybernetic novel as one that writes itself, or one where the reader is also the narrator. A novel that possesses self-reflexivity. I made the sketch (see above) some time ago while thinking about my novel "The Island Survival Guide". When I say "I thought about my novel"...
The big bang of the human mind, and our desire to build artificial beings
[slideshare id=46037137&doc=thebirthofart-150319085231-conversion-gate01] The "big bang of the human mind" took place around 40,000 years ago, when our prehistoric ancestors developed general purpose language. The reasons why this happened are yet unclear, and probably involve a number of genetic mutations. We know that something changed because of the emergence of art,...
Brains wired for “seeing” the invisible
Can you really be an atheist? This question is not often asked, perhaps because one implicitly assumes that not believing in god, or soul, or the afterlife, are philosophical positions, or personal choices, or indeed the result of rational analysis. After all famous atheists, like biologist Richard Dawkins or philosopher...
Welcome the mechasexual
Would you make love to a machine? Although this question may strike one as ludicrous, science’s answer is that it all depends how the machine looks like; as well as whether you are a man or a woman. As evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker tells us in his book “How the...
How to design “digital nudges”
[slideshare id=43348029&w=476&h=400&sc=no] With one of my clients I experimented with ideas from the 2008 book by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein "Nudge". My client was a B2B company active in internet radio technology and selling its product mostly through its website as SaaS. Their challenges were many, including the...