Everyone is concerned about ‘algorithms.’ Especially legal academics; law review articles, conferences, symposia all bear testimony to this claim. Algorithms and transparency; the tyranny of algorithms; how algorithms can deprive you of your rights; and so on. Algorithmic decision making is problematic; so is algorithmic credit scoring; or algorithmic stock trading. You get the picture;Continue reading “Dear Legal Academics, Please Stop Misusing The Word ‘Algorithms’”
Tag Archives: artificial intelligence
Blade Runner 2049: Our Slaves Will Set Us Free
Blade Runner 2049 is a provocative visual and aural treat. It sparked many thoughts, two of which I make note of here; the relationship between the two should be apparent. What is the research project called ‘artificial intelligence’ trying to do? Is it trying to make machines that can do the things which, if doneContinue reading “Blade Runner 2049: Our Slaves Will Set Us Free”
Will Artificial Intelligence Create More Jobs Than It Eliminates? Maybe
Over at the MIT Sloan Management Review, H. James Wilson, Paul R. Daugherty, and Nicola Morini-Bianzino strike an optimistic note as they respond to the “distressing picture” created by “the threat that automation will eliminate a broad swath of jobs across the world economy [for] as artificial intelligence (AI) systems become ever more sophisticated, another wave ofContinue reading “Will Artificial Intelligence Create More Jobs Than It Eliminates? Maybe”
Westworld’s ‘Analysis Mode’ For Humans
In the course of a discussion about the various motivations underlying the character Robert Ford‘s actions in HBO’s Westworld, a friend raised the following query: In what senses would it be good, and in which bad, if human beings could put one another into ‘analysis mode’ like techs can do with hosts in the show?Continue reading “Westworld’s ‘Analysis Mode’ For Humans”
‘Westworld’ And The American West As Locale For Self-Reconfiguration
It is perhaps unsurprising that Westworld is Westworld; if American mythology is to be staged anywhere, the West is a natural locale. In the original Westworld, the West meant a zone in which certain kinds of adventures were facilitated: gun battles mostly, but also sex with perfect strangers who cared little for who you were andContinue reading “‘Westworld’ And The American West As Locale For Self-Reconfiguration”
‘Westworld’ And Our Constitutive Loneliness
The title sequence to HBO’s Westworld is visually and aurally beautiful, melancholic, and ultimately haunting: artifacts–whose artifice is clearly visible–take shape in front of us, manufactured and brought into being by sophisticated devices, presumably robotic ones just like them; their anatomies and shapes and forms and talents are human-like; and that is all we needContinue reading “‘Westworld’ And Our Constitutive Loneliness”
Artificial Intelligence And Go: (Alpha)Go Ahead, Move The Goalposts
In the summer of 1999, I attended my first ever professional academic philosophy conference–in Vienna. At the conference, one titled ‘New Trends in Cognitive Science’, I gave a talk titled (rather pompously) ‘No Cognition without Representation: The Dynamical Theory of Cognition and The Emulation Theory of Mental Representation.’ I did the things you do atContinue reading “Artificial Intelligence And Go: (Alpha)Go Ahead, Move The Goalposts”
‘Eva’: Love Can Be Skin-Deep (Justifiably)
Kike Maíllo’s Eva makes for an interesting contribution to the ever-growing–in recent times–genre of robotics and artificial intelligence movies. That is because its central concern–the emulation of humanity by robots–which is not particularly novel in itself, is portrayed in familiar and yet distinctive, form. The most common objection to the personhood of the ‘artificially sentient,’Continue reading “‘Eva’: Love Can Be Skin-Deep (Justifiably)”
One Vision Of A Driverless Car Future: Eliminating Private Car Ownership
Most analysis of a driverless car future concentrates on the gains in safety: ‘robotic’ cars will adhere more closely to speed limits and other traffic rules and over a period of time, by eliminating human error and idiosyncrasies, produce a safer environment on our roads. This might be seen as an architectural modification of humanContinue reading “One Vision Of A Driverless Car Future: Eliminating Private Car Ownership”
Is Artificial Intelligence Racist And Malevolent?
Our worst fears have been confirmed: artificial intelligence is racist and malevolent. Or so it seems. Google’s image recognition software has classified two African Americans as ‘gorillas’ and, away in Germany, a robot has killed a worker at a Volkswagen plant. The dumb, stupid, unblinking, garbage-in-garbage-out machines, the ones that would always strive to catchContinue reading “Is Artificial Intelligence Racist And Malevolent?”
Samir Chopra 