In my recent review of Coding Freedom by E. Gabriella Coleman, published on io9, I describe the tension between the open-source movement in software and the tightening of copyright law. Coleman examines in anthropological detail the conflict between the open-source … Continue reading
In November Ray Kurzweil published a book titled How to Create A Mind, and five weeks later he was hired by Google as chief engineer. The book lays out a pattern-recognition theory of mind, arguing that this idea is reflected in advances in artificial intelligence, and can be inferred from developments in neuroscience. If true, the field of AI may leap forward with Kurzweil as the guiding hand of Google’s laboratory. In any case, the theory deserves close study. Here is my short (ten-page) summary of his book, and a few comments. Continue reading
The third phase is going to blast us out of the water. Green screens and icons are mysterious; language is our native land. Continue reading
Capturing everything about your life is now a real possibility. If you could, would you record every conversation, every minute of every day? It is such a strange prospect that we don’t know what to think… Continue reading
