Comments on: Robot with a Biological Brain

By: Anticontrame

Anticontrame — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:33:21 +0000

Dr. Novella, I have a passing understanding of how some artificial neural networks are trained, but I have no idea how they trained this biological network. Could you point me towards some literature?

Thanks!

By: clgood

clgood — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:02:02 +0000

Dr. Novella:

Have you read any William Gibson? I’m bilingual, but that second language was expensive. I’d love to be able to “slot” the language of the country I’m visiting.

Right-to-lifers and other generally anti-science groups…

Careful with the broad brush there, DA. Being pro life does not make one anti-science.

By: jeffhsu3

jeffhsu3 — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:28:54 +0000

Warwick is a huge advocate for so-called human machine interfaces. I remember press releases a few years back announcing that he had implanted a RFID into his arm.

I have a hard time envisioning on how a computer AI introduced into a human brain would confer additional intelligence. I could imagine for instance that a computer AI would be helpful in offloading some of the processing for muscle control resulting in possibly faster movements and other such tasks. But would it be able to increase our ability to garner and elucidate the deeper mysteries of the universe? I certainly hope so.

Maybe I should pick up Clarke’s book.

By: CKava

CKava — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:10:54 +0000

Instead of accusing people of being ‘computer illiterates’ you could maybe think what the result usually is when you try to post the same link multiple times.

Regardless of all that, as has been pointed out people are well aware of that study and have already discussed it. Enjoy listening to the podcast.

By: Steven Novella

Steven Novella — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:52:06 +0000

pec – We simply use a spam filter plug in for WordPress – Defensio. It is off-the-shelf standard stuff. As far as I know there are no settings – it’s just a service. It has nothing to do with how we “use” it. It has nothing to do with our blog software. It is an outside service we plug in – that’s it.

As best I can tell you were pegged as a spammer by the filter because of the frequency of your posts. There were 50 of your posts flagged as spam – it looks like the more you tried to post the higher your spam rating went. There may have been other factors in the algorithm – I have no way of knowing.

My advise is, if your post does not go through, do not re-post. That just makes it worse. We will get to it eventually.

By: pec

pec — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:31:23 +0000

You can laugh your stupid ass off all you want Fifi, but you can’t explain why there is scientific research to support claims that your ideology says is impossible.

And I did not behave at all like a spammer. I tried posting the link a couple of times and gave up. I tried posting the author’s name, affiliation, etc., and gave up. I tried posting anything at all and most of the time it failed. That does not sound like a very good spam filter. The computer illiterates at sciencebasedmediciine are not using their blog software correctly.

By: decius

decius — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:47:37 +0000

That’s rich, Fifi.

By: Fifi

Fifi — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:06:06 +0000

I’ve particularly enjoyed the “I can’t post because I’m being oppressed”…um…posts *rotflmao*

By: Fifi

Fifi — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:05:14 +0000

Ah, pec (who claims to be a computer scientist) doesn’t even understand the basics of a spam filter and thought she was being oppressed because the algorithm recognized her as a spammer because she behaved just like a spammer. Talk about a very thin grasp of cause and effect. This is highly entertaining.

By: decius

decius — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:37:17 +0000

You know perfectly well what I mean, don’t pretend it’s about the link.
By the way, that topic has been covered three weeks ago.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52008-07-29.mp3