The Way AI Behaves

[bnewman]

In "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Alan Turing suggested that we will know whether machines can think, roughly speaking, by the way they behave — just as, in "Prince Lir's Song", the prince will know when he loves "by the way I behave".  Thus begins a brief survey of the history and philosophy of machine intelligence.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman, after "Prince Lir's Song" by Peter S. Beagle

ttto: "The Ash Grove", trad.

 

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Sheep with Stripes

[bnewman]

In the book of Genesis, after working for 20 years pasturing his uncle Laban's sheep, Jacob hatches a plot to acquire his fair share of the flock for himself, through... genetic engineering?  In context it's clear that this is regarded, not as a divine miracle, but as how the ancients thought genetics actually worked.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman based on Genesis 30:25-43

ttto: "Cows with Guns" by Dana Lyons

listen to this song
 

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