Three Great Weekend Reads
In case you missed them…
Do you know how to draw a shoe?
Why are we so afraid of robots?
Is your success getting in the way of your happiness?
Over the years, people develop a manner of “seeing” that relies heavily on their brain telling them what’s there without really looking, because it saves time. Drawing depends on the opposite — bypassing the brain and really seeing what’s in front of you… Drawing a shoe is a common assignment for students and artists.
In a critical evaluation of AI, the cognitive and computer scientists Gary Marcus and Ernest Davies demonstrate that the state of the art of AI is still quite far from true intelligence. When asked to provide a list of restaurants that are not McDonald’s, Siri still spits out a list of local McDonald’s restaurants; she just doesn’t get the “no” part of “no.” [.] This doesn’t bode well for the AI conspiracy.
Though it isn’t a conventional medical addiction, for many people success has addictive properties. To a certain extent, I mean that literally—praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is implicated in all addictive behaviors. (This is basically how social media keeps people hooked: Users get a dopamine hit from the “likes” generated by a post, keeping them coming back again and again, hour after miserable hour.)