Nathan Jacobson

Director of Media and Brand, Discovery Institute

Nathan Jacobson is the Director of Media and Brand for Discovery Institute. After studying architectural design and philosophy at the University of Colorado, Jacobson earned his Master of Arts in Philosophy at Biola University's Talbot School of Theology. In 2001 he cofounded Alas Studio, a community of creatives in Zaragoza and then Barcelona. He created his first website on the Denver swing dance scene in 1996 and has worked as a designer and developer ever since. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Washington State.

Archives

The Composite

Seductive Optics and Skeuomorphic Intelligence, Part IV.
Nathan Jacobson
March 9, 2023
This is the last in a series. Read Part I, Part II – “Moving PIxels“, and Part III -“Talking Boxes“. The greatest aspiration of artificial intelligence Frankensteins is stitching together all the sundry parts into a moving, talking, seeing, and interacting android. Today, this composite of technologies is most famously embodied in Sophia. This android from Hanson Robotics is an international “celebrity”, appearing on late night shows and on the exhibit floors of tech conferences. With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein On its marketing page, Sophia’s marketing department puts the following words in its …

Talking Boxes

Seductive Optics and Skeuomorphic Intelligence, Part III.
Nathan Jacobson
March 8, 2023
There will be synthesized versions of gravelly voices, deep baritones, fast talkers, low talkers, high talkers, yada, yada, yada. Amazon has added functions to enable Alexa to whisper, emphasize a word, or mimic local slang. But as our talking boxes run their routines, they understand nothing.

Moving Pixels

Seductive Optics and Skeuomorphic Intelligence, Part II.
Nathan Jacobson
March 7, 2023
Whatever emotions we bring to the movie or to the game ourselves, our digital allies and enemies breathe no breaths, make no sacrifices, feel no lonely deaths. Living, dying, or respawning, they are as dead as a dead pixel.

Seductive Optics and Skeuomorphic Intelligence

Appearance and reality in art and artificial intelligence
Nathan Jacobson
March 6, 2023
Things are not always as they seem. Artificial intelligence is like that. Art may be visually indistinguishable from a man or woman, passing the art equivalent of a Turing Test, we know they're not in the least the same kind of thing as what they portray. Paint does not suffer. Stone does not breathe.

Google: Rank Censorship Behind the Scenes

We live under a state of highly sophisticated and ubiquitous suppression of disfavored voices
Nathan Jacobson
January 1, 2023
One year ago today (January 1st, 2022) we saw behind the curtain at Google. With vast information scattered across a billion websites, whoever controls the search algorithm largely controls information. And if Google.com were a stage, the spotlight is centered squarely on the first result, with some ambient light spilling onto a few supporting roles. The second page results are essentially extras, unlikely to catch the attention of the audience at all. About 25% of web searchers click that first result. Another 50% follow one of the next half-dozen. A scant 6% will ever make it to the second page.* If your breaking news, breakthrough product, or bold opinion piece isn’t in a starring role on that first page, it will languish in the wings behind the curtains. Recent revelations about …