Artificial Intelligence and Transhumanism

Also, see this cybernetics page for common ground between Minsky, Hofstadter, and Dennett.

Great Mambo Chicken & The Trans Human Condition by Ed Regis. Just when I find out that I'm a Humanist, then I find out about Transhumanism! Always a day late and a dollar short......Solution for physicists who seek a way to generate the level of energy needed to study super symmetry: put Erich Harth and some folks like Regis, Drexler, and Minsky in the same room.

Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler. How to make a biologist stop laughing at all his engineering friends.

The mind, artificial intelligence and emotions
Interview with Marvin Minsky
Conducted by Renato M.E. Sabbatini, PhD,
Associate Editor, Brain & Mind Magazine
Sabbatini: "Why there are no computers already working with common sense knowledge?"

Minsky: "There are very few people working with common sense problems in Artificial Intelligence. I know of no more than five people, so probably there are about ten of them out there. Who are these people ? There's John McCarthy, at Stanford University, who was the first to formalize common sense using logics. He has a very interesting web page. Then, there is Harry Sloaman, from the University of Edinburgh, who's probably the best philosopher in the world working on Artificial Intelligence, with the exception of Daniel Dennett, but he knows more about computers. Then there's me, of course. Another person working on a strong common-sense project is Douglas Lenat, who directs the CYC project in Austin. Finally, Douglas Hofstadter, who wrote many books about the mind, artificial intelligence, etc., is working on similar problems.

We talk only to each other and no one else is interested. There is something wrong with computer sciences."

MARVIN MINSKY: THE SOCIETY OF MIND CD-ROM The high-level AI path to mind. For contrast, try going low-level.

The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain by Paul M. Churchland. Not very far into the brain. This is really a philosopher's ode to the AI neural network approach. A review by Danny Yee. Another view from Luciano da Fontoura Costa. My views.

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