robot

Could Robots Take All Our Jobs?: A Philosophical Perspective

I’ve written a new post on LessWrong that deals with a lot of the philosophical objections to AI; it’s titled, “Could Robots Take All Our Jobs? A Philosophical Perspective.” People are welcome to comment both here or over there.

if-you-cant-convince-them-confuse-them

An index of why William Lane Craig is a dishonest genocide-defending creepy homophobe

William Lane Craig is a strong candidate for the greatest living proponent of natural theology. But that’s because serious philosophers have almost entirely abandoned natural theology. A guide to Craig’s track record of dishonesty and fundamentalist lunacy.

luke2

Will human-level AI be created this century? Nobody really knows

That’s the take-away from MIRI executive director Luke Muehlhauser’s recent blog post, “When Will AI Be Created?” He writes: “We can’t be confident AI will come in the next 30 years, and we can’t be confident it’ll take more than 100 years, and anyone who is confident of either claim is pretending to know too much.”

Hll, wrld!

On disemvowelling and creationism

I’ve been learning to program in Python, and midway through an “online intro to Python” thing I’ve been doing, I realized it had given me everything I’d need to write a Python script for disemvowelling text. Also: my policy on creationism in the comments.

benedict-cumberbatch-star-trek-into-darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness was about as mediocre as I expected

I expected Star Trek Into Darkness to be at least mildly enjoyable. And it was in fact mildly enjoyable. Unfortunately, it also ends up less being a movie than a series of action scenes strung together by references to Trek lore that will only make sense to fans.

locutus

Star Trek’s reactionary take on human enhancement

Reading transhumaist fiction makes Star Trek look as reactionary as Lord of the Rings. All of Trek’s greatest villains are enhanced, while enhanced heroes are relegated to Token Orc status.

Shopping-fixed

Is there more to life than happiness?

Pleasure isn’t all we care about that. Is the same true of happiness? If religion had a positive effect on happiness, would you want to be religious? Could Paris Hilton ever be happy?

logic

On the stupidity of asking, “but where’s the evidence we need evidence for things?”

Dealing with a Christian who insists asking for evidence is self-defeating.

gun_aircraft

Do 29 percent of Americans really think an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years?

Brian Lieter links to the following story, concluding “Large numbers of Americans are completely nuts”: Supporters and opponents of gun control have very different fundamental beliefs about the role of guns in American society. Overall, the poll finds that 29 percent of Americans think that an armed revolution in order to protect liberties might be [...]

Who do you want me to interview?

Hi everybody, last year I talked a bit about starting up a podcast, but never sorted out the technical difficulties. Now I think I’ve managed to do that, and need people to interview, so consider this a thread to offer suggestions.

Sye

Who takes the likes of Sye Ten Bruggencate seriously?

Sye Ten Bruggencate makes Bill O’Reilly look smart. So how does he manage to make a living as a full-time apologist? Could young-earth creationism be the answer?

Matthew 6-6

I wish more Christians knew this Bible verse

If only more Christians knew what the Bible really says about prayer…