Robert J. Marks II

Director, Senior Fellow, Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence
Robert J. Marks Ph.D. is Senior Fellow and Director of the Bradley Center and is Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Marks is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America). He was the former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and is the current Editor-in-Chief of BIO-Complexity. Marks is author of the books Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will Never Do and The Case For Killer Robots. He is co-author of the books For a Greater Purpose: The Life and Legacy of Walter Bradley, Neural Smithing: Supervised Learning in Feedforward Artificial Neural Networks and Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. For more information, see Dr. Marks’s expanded bio.

Archives

Monday Microsofty 97:  Mad Hatters Flip Their Lids

What are the chances that all of the naval academy graduates would find their own hats in a random toss?
Robert J. Marks
September 21, 2026
There is more than one solution to last week’s Queens Problem because the board can be rotated — but we present one here.

Tech Entrepreneur David Copps on Building Real-World AI

Robert J. Marks
September 18, 2026
How can entrepreneurs incorporate the benefits of AI while maintaining their dedication to serving fellow human beings? On this bingecast episode of Mind Matters News, enjoy the full uninterrupted conversation between host Robert J. Marks and David Copps, a renowned entrepreneur, technologist, and thought leader with over two decades of experience pioneering advancements in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Tech Entrepreneur on People-First AI Innovation in Business

David Copps
September 18, 2026
Today’s episode of ID The Future comes from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Mind Matters regularly explores the nature of intelligence, the origin of information, and the things that make us uniquely human, all concepts that are central to the theory of intelligent design. Enjoy today’s offering of Mind Matters News! How can entrepreneurs incorporate the benefits of AI while maintaining their dedication to serving fellow human beings? On this episode of Mind Matters News, host Robert J. Marks welcomes David Copps, a renowned entrepreneur, technologist, and thought leader with over two decades of experience pioneering advancements in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Monday Microsofty 96: The Queens Problem

Can you place 8 queens on a standard 8×8 chessboard so that no queen can capture another?
Robert J. Marks
September 14, 2026
To solve last week’s dilemma, pay attention to the functions words can have in a sentence.

What Exactly Was AI’s Breakthrough in Hard Math?

Claude translated an already proven theorem into a detailed computer-related derivation, which is much more difficult than, say, translating it into Cantonese
Robert J. Marks
September 9, 2026
Meanwhile, some are asking if Claude’s Navier–Stokes proof really originated with a researcher and a math prof using the system.

Angus Menuge: Powers of the Soul That Are Beyond AI

Robert J. Marks
September 2, 2026
In this episode of the Mind Matters News podcast, Dr. Robert J. Marks and Pat Flynn welcome returning guest Dr. Angus Menuge, professor of philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin, to discuss his paper "Powers of the Soul Beyond AI." Dr. Menuge breaks down the philosophical and logical limits of artificial intelligence, targeting the concept of anthropic mechanism to explain why material machines cannot replicate the immaterial aspects of human agency. Through the lens of five distinct powers—including insight, meta-insight, and free will—Menuge explores why large language models and advanced computing systems fall short of genuine understanding and human consciousness.

Angus Menuge: A Defense of the Soul in the Age of AI

Dr. Angus Menuge
September 2, 2026
Today’s episode of ID The Future comes from our sister podcast Mind Matters News, a production of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. In this episode of Mind Matters News, hosts Dr. Robert J. Marks and Pat Flynn welcome returning guest Dr. Angus Menuge, professor of philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin, to discuss his paper “Powers of the Soul Beyond AI.” Dr. Menuge breaks down the philosophical and logical limits of artificial intelligence, targeting the concept of anthropic mechanism to explain why material machines cannot replicate the immaterial aspects of human agency. Through the lens of five distinct powers—including insight, meta-insight, and free will—Menuge explores why large language models and advanced computing systems fall short of genuine understanding and human consciousness.

Monday Microsofty 94:  A Tree Planting Dilemma

This week's puzzle sounds simple but it involves thinking in terms other than squares
Robert J. Marks
August 31, 2026
The answer to last week's "count the squares" puzzle can be turned into a formula that can be applied to any number of dimensions.

The Algorithmic Mind and the Limits of Computation

Robert J. Marks
August 21, 2026
On this bingecast archive episode of Mind Matters News, guest host Pat Flynn welcomes Dr. Winston Ewert to the show to discuss Ewert’s chapter in the volume Minding the Brain.  In his contribution, titled “The Human Mind’s Sophisticated Algorithm and Its Implications,” Dr. Ewert argues that the human mind’s problem-solving cognition can be modeled as a sophisticated algorithm. Ewert explains that any cognitive task can be expressed as a version of the halting problem from computer science, where an algorithm either halts or continues infinitely. He suggests that humans are able to solve a large and sophisticated subset of these problems, but are limited in the same way that no algorithm can solve all halting problems. Ewert contends that this algorithmic view of human cognition has implications that challenge reductive materialist and neo-Darwinian views, despite resistance from some thinkers who believe human abilities transcend any algorithm.

The Daily Mail: Clickbait in the AI Arms Race

Contrary to the article’s premise, the AI did not invent any bad behavior. It copied or adapted techniques that are already well known and widely available
Robert J. Marks
August 6, 2026
The real concern is that AI can find, combine, and carry out existing malicious techniques much faster and on a much larger scale than the human one.

Monday Micro Softy 90: Mow Power to You

Why would Charlie's well-maintained lawnmower apparently be losing energy efficiency over the years?
Robert J. Marks
August 3, 2026
To unraveling the multiple negatives in last week’s confusing sentences, we start by remembering that any two cancel each other.

Monday Micro Softy 89:  Double Negatives are a No-No

Actually, they do have their uses — for example, if politicians are trying to correctly state views while making them hard to understand
Robert J. Marks
July 27, 2026
To solve last week's puzzle: you are told how many heads there are so start by flipping that number of coins.

Monday Micro Softy 88:  Flipping Gold Coins

Computer programmers must be good at math. The solution to this week's Micro Softy uses math — but you don’t need to know the math to impress your friends
Robert J. Marks
July 20, 2026
The answer to Micro Softy 87 depends on understanding which number a given sequence of the code represents.