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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

Tested!: Are the Least Expert People the Most Confident? No.

The claimed Dunning–Kruger effect in psychology is a very shakeable truth frequently exploited by online social bullies
News
October 21, 2021
Have you ever been in an online discussion where a vocal proponent confidently claimed that his opponent was the victim of the dreaded “Dunning–Kruger” effect? At Vox, Brian Resnick explains, “That’s where people of low ability — let’s say, those who fail to answer logic puzzles correctly — tend to unduly overestimate their abilities”: An obvious example people have been using lately to describe the Dunning-Kruger effect is President Donald Trump, whose confidence and bluster never wavers, despite his weak interest in and understanding of policy matters. But you don’t need to look to Trump to find an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. You don’t even need to look at cable news. Brian Resnick, “An expert on human blind spots…

Ari Emanuel, COSM 2021: Movie Nite’s Changed; It’s Not Just COVID

How are both streaming services and the global pandemic changing the way we watch movies?
Caitlin Bassett
October 21, 2021
The movie-going experience was already changing before the COVID-19 shutdowns of 2020, due to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. But the global pandemic may be changing how we watch movies forever. “The pandemic has changed everything, and that will be reflected on screen,” writes HuffPost. Headlines have roundly been indicating the same. From Quartz: “Coronavirus is pushing an already vulnerable film industry closer to the edge.” From FEE: “To Survive COVID-19, Movie Theaters Will Have to Change.” What will that change look like? Hollywood maven Ari Emanuel will be at COSM 2021 this November to explore that question. Emanuel is a businessman and super-agent (having represented names like Oprah Winfrey, Martin Scorsese, and even Donald Trump). He is the CEO…

Asilomar AI Principles: Ethics to Guide a Top-Down Control Regime

Experts agree on a humanistic AI ethics program! Before we break out the champagne, let's ask some serious questions about their assumptions.
Richard W. Stevens
October 21, 2021
Get 1,200 artificial intelligence (AI) researchers and 2,500 other businesspeople and academics, such as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Ray Kurzweil, and David Chalmers, to all endorse one document about AI ethics. Voila! You have the Asilomar AI Principles with serious sound bite power: Experts agree on a humanistic AI ethics program! Do the Principles advance a worthy cause? To a certain extent, perhaps, in theory. Reading the text of the Asilomar Principles, however, you get a few vague ethical aspirations offered to guide a top-down control regime. Surveying the Principles’ 23 points, a few stand out as smooth, velvet glove power-grabbers. The points do it subtly, so as the holographic Dr. Lanning advised in I, Robot (2004), “you have to ask the right questions.”  At least one useful thing a 30-year litigation…
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The 2020 AI Smash Hits: Countdown by Bradley Center Brain Trust Members

Robert J. Marks
October 21, 2021
There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on in the world of artificial intelligence, and while it can be hard to pick a favorite, the Bradley Center Brain Trust rounded out 2020 by narrowing it down to their top ten. Join us as we revisit those top ten stories with Robert J. Marks, Jonathan Bartlett, and Eric Holloway. Show Notes…

COSM Speaker Peter Thiel: The Failures and “Self-Hatred” of Big Tech

George Gilder
October 14, 2021
Listen to maverick entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s talk from last year’s COSM conference. Thiel discusses his views of artificial intelligence, Big Tech’s monopoly, China, and the future of technology with legendary tech guru George Gilder. You can register now to hear Peter Thiel and George Gilder at this year’s COSM conference in November. Show Notes 00:50 | Introducing Peter Thiel 01:12…

The 2020 AI Dirty Dozen Hyped Stories: Countdown by Bradley Center Brain Trust Members

Robert J. Marks
October 7, 2021
Is AI fundamentally flawed? Can Elon Musk merge man with machines? Will there ever be self-driving cars? Join us as we revisit the top 12 most over-hyped stories in artificial intelligence from 2020 with Robert J. Marks, Jonathan Bartlett, and Eric Holloway. Show Notes 00:01:10 | Introducing Jonathan Bartlett 00:01:37 | Introducing Dr. Eric Holloway 00:02:00 | #12: “The way…
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