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Mission

The mission of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Discovery Institute is to explore the benefits as well as the challenges raised by artificial intelligence (AI) in light of the enduring truth of human exceptionalism. People know at a fundamental level that they are not machines. But faulty thinking can cause people to assent to views that in their heart of hearts they know to be untrue. The Bradley Center seeks to help individuals—and our society at large—to realize that we are not machines while at the same time helping to put machines (especially computers and AI) in proper perspective. Learn More

Walter Bradley

About Walter Bradley

Walter Bradley is my hero because the impact of his life will be celebrated in perpetuity. I want a heritage like that. But ironically such a goal cannot be achieved by making it a goal. ⋮ Read More …

Articles & Podcasts

Mathematics Gives Us Life Skills and Mental Tools

Jonathan Bartlett
August 21, 2019
My recent article on teaching calculus generated some pushback (crossposted here as well) from Jeffrey Shallit, a computer science professor who seems to consider himself a guardian of academic thought. I am saddened by such displays because they demonstrate that academia has stopped trying to …

“Anonymized” Data Is Not Confidential

News
August 20, 2019
Last summer, data researchers published an open-access paper on their “white hat” hacking—they were trying to see how easy it is to “de-anonymize” data that we think is anonymous. It was disturbingly easy, according to study co-author Carlo Ratti: First, they combined two anonymized …

The Machine Knows You Are Angry

News
August 20, 2019
Some people think machine recognition of emotions is the Next Big Thing: Humans have always had the innate ability to recognize and distinguish between faces. Now computers are able to do the same. This opens up tons of applications… We have also created a pipeline for detection, recognition …
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Edward Feser on Neurobabble and Remembering the Right Questions

Michael Egnor
August 15, 2019
Michael Egnor hosts a captivating conversation with Edward Feser, Aristotelian, prolific blogger, and philosopher of mind. Neurobabble and pop science dismissals of the mind, final causes, abstract thought, and free will each face Feser's piercing critique. Show Notes 00:41 | Introducing …

The Holy Grail of Artificial Intelligence

Gary Smith
August 8, 2019
Gary N. Smith and Robert J. Marks continue their discussion of IBM's Watson and its grim future in health and medicine. The problem, they say, is that Watson amounts to a real world instance of John Searle's "Chinese Room". Computers don't understand Chinese, English, or numbers for that matter. …

Time Passes, Love Fades, But What Does "It" All Mean?

Gary Smith
August 1, 2019
Gary N. Smith and Robert J. Marks discuss the inability of AI to understand puns, lyrics, context, or anything at all. From trading futures, predicting political outcomes, and parsing lyrics, the fundamental incomprehension of artificial intelligence is a key to understanding its …
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