Minds & Machines: Week 2 – Minds and Computers (part II)

This week both lectures continued on from part one and the debate between strong AI and weak AI. This week we also looked at what is an argument and what makes a good argument. An argument is a list of sentences. These sentences are called premises and they need not be true. If they are …

Minds & Machines: Week 1 – Minds and Computers

This week I started a new online MOOC through MITx called Minds and Machines. This course is an introduction to philosophy of the mind. Some of the questions we will be thinking about in this course are: Are you an “immaterial soul” , distinct from your brain and body? Alternatively, are you simply a material …

AI, robots and lawn bowls

Topic: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence Year group: Year 6 Task: Build and code a robot that learns from past experiences Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most important technology of our era. In particular, machine learning (ML) is going to play a vital role in how the human race makes progress in the decades to come in …

Philosophy of Technology: Humans vs Machines – Final Week

In this final session we discussed some of the best sci-fi films that explore issues of technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and more. In particular we discussed the film Ex Machina and watched some scenes from the movie. Kerry has recommended Ex Machina from week 1 of the course and says it was one of the best …

Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine – Week 9

The penultimate week of the course. This week we focused on self-driving cars and drone technology. We started by talking about how the motor vehicle has shaped our urban environments. Cities are designed around cars, street layout, bridges, intersections, tunnels, road signs, traffic lights and more, it is all because of the car. When something …

Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine – Week 7

In our session this week we finished our discussion of Machine Ethics and began discussing Medical issues and technology. We started the session by talking about intelligent machines that could be capable of thinking of their own rules. We asked who would be to blame when something goes wrong? The programmer did not code in …

Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine – Week 1

My first new course for 2017 is Philosophy of Technology: Human vs Machine, a 10 week course at the University of Sydney. In this opening week of the course we learnt what technology is, and isn't, and had some interesting debates about driverless cars, human looking robots, Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger and Freud. So, what is …