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This brief article presents the introduction and draft of the fundamental ideas developed at length in the book of the same title, which gives a challenging point of view about science and its history/philosophy/sociology. Science is in…
I shall present three arguments for the proposition that intelligent life is very rare in the universe. First, I shall summarize the consensus opinion of the founders of the Modern Synthesis (Simpson, Dobzhanski, and Mayr) that the…
Developments in machine learning and computing power suggest that artificial general intelligence is within reach. This raises the question of artificial consciousness: if a computer were to be functionally equivalent to a human, being able…
In September 2016, Stanford's "One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence" project (AI100) issued the first report of its planned long-term periodic assessment of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on society. It was written…
We paraphrase Descartes' famous dictum in the area of AI ethics where the "I doubt and therefore I am" is suggested as a necessary aspect of morality. Therefore AI, which cannot doubt itself, cannot possess moral agency. Of course, this is…
The number of people able to end Earth's technical civilization has heretofore been small. Emerging dual-use technologies, such as biotechnology, may give similar power to thousands or millions of individuals. To quantitatively investigate…
We approach the question "What is Consciousness?" in a new way, not as Descartes' "systematic doubt", but as how organisms find their way in their world. Finding one's way involves finding possible uses of features of the world that might…
Adam Smith developed a version of moral philosophy where better decisions are made by interrogating an impartial spectator within us. We discuss the possibility of using an external non-human-based substitute tool that would augment our…
The question of "what is life?" has challenged scientists and philosophers for centuries, producing an array of definitions that reflect both the mystery of its emergence and the diversity of disciplinary perspectives brought to bear on the…
We here analyse the question of developing artificial consciousness from an evolutionary perspective, taking the evolution of the human brain and its relation with consciousness as a reference model. This kind of analysis reveals several…
Millions of users form emotional attachments to AI companions like Character AI, Replika, and ChatGPT. When these relationships end through model updates, safety interventions, or platform shutdowns, users receive no closure, reporting…
The concepts of blameworthiness and wrongness are of fundamental importance in human moral life. But to what extent are humans disposed to blame artificially intelligent agents, and to what extent will they judge their actions to be morally…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is supposed to help us make better choices. Some of these choices are small, like what route to take to work, or what music to listen to. Others are big, like what treatment to administer for a disease or how…
Recent intriguing discussion of heat death by Kutrovatz is critically examined. It is shown that there exists another way of answering the heat death puzzle, already present in the ancient philosophical tradition. This alternative route…
As generative AI technologies rapidly advance, AI agents are gaining the ability not only to collect data and perform tasks but also to respond to environments and evolve over time. This shift opens new possibilities for reimagining digital…
Currently, the process of evaluating suicides is highly subjective, which limits the efficacy and accuracy of prevention efforts. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a means of investigating large datasets to identify patterns…
Our fascination with intelligent machines goes back to ancient times with the mythical automaton Talos, Aristotle's mode of mechanical thought (syllogism) and Heron of Alexandria's mechanical machines. However, the quest for Artificial…
Interactions with large language models have led to the suggestion that these models may soon be conscious. From the perspective of neuroscience, this position is difficult to defend. For one, the inputs to large language models lack the…
The welfare of modern societies has been intrinsically linked to wage labour. With some exceptions, the modern human has to sell her labour-power to be able reproduce biologically and socially. Thus, a lingering fear of technological…
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) were devised as a tool for Artificial Intelligence design implementations. However, it was soon became obvious that they are unable to fulfill their duties. The fully autonomous way of ANNs working,…