Podcasts

Discovery Institute Podcast

Blake Lemoine and the LaMDA Question

_{Robert J. Marks II
March 9, 2023}

In this continuation of last week’s conversation, ex-Googler Blake Lemoine tells Robert J. Marks what originally got him interested in AI: reading the science fiction of Isaac Asimov as a boy in rural Louisiana. The two go on to discuss and debate sentience in AI, non-computable traits of human beings, and the question of the soul. Additional Resources Robert J. Marks at Discovery.org Blake Lemoine at Twitter Full audio performance of the conversation between Blake Lemoine and LaMDA Full audio performance of the conversation between Blake Lemoine and LaMDA-Transcript LaMDA: Language Models for Dialog Applications Computing Machinery And Intelligence By A. M. Turing Video on LaMDA 2 Thomas Ray Tierra: The Character of Adaptation “Join us in the AI …

Jonathan Bartlett on the Growing Evidence of Designed Mutations

_{Jonathan McLatchie
March 6, 2023}

On today’s ID the Future, host and evolutionary biologist Jonathan McLatchie sits down with software R&D engineer Jonathan Bartlett to discuss Bartlett’s work on the question of when genetic mutations are random versus directed. Bartlett explains that the issue isn’t an all-or-nothing affair. Often a given biological system dramatically limits the search space of possible mutations in useful ways, and then within that much more limited set of possible mutations, random processes are at play. He gives the example of antibody mutations. He argues that many biological systems show considerable evidence of having been beneficially designed for directed mutations. Why, then, are many mutations deleterious? He also has an answer for that. Tune in to learn more. Bartlett’s two …

A Chat with Blake Lemoine on Google and AI Sentience

_{Robert J. Marks II
March 2, 2023}

Former Google employee Blake Lemoine claimed that the Large Language Model LaMDA was a sentient being. The claim got him fired. In this episode, Lemoine sits down with Robert J. Marks to discuss AI, what he was doing at Google, and why he believes artificial intelligence can be sentient. Additional Resources Robert J. Marks at Discovery.org Blake Lemoine at Twitter Full audio performance of the conversation between Blake Lemoine and LaMDA Full audio performance of the conversation between Blake Lemoine and LaMDA-Transcript LaMDA: Language Models for Dialog Applications Computing Machinery And Intelligence By A. M. Turing Video on LaMDA 2 Thomas Ray Tierra: The Character of Adaptation “Join us in the AI Test Kitchen” Test LaMDA2 Pictures of eight people. Four are real. …

Mind Matters

Where Does Innovation Come From?

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Robert J. Marks
March 23, 2023}

In a continuation of last week’s conversation, technology experts Jeffrey Funk and Robert J. Marks explore the question of where today’s technological innovation is fostered. Academia? Private corporations? The military? Since many universities now prize publication over innovation, much of the real progress is being made elsewhere. Additional Resources

Jeffrey Funk on AI, Startups, and Big Tech

_{230
Robert J. Marks
March 16, 2023}

In this podcast episode, technology consultant and author Jeffrey Funk joins Robert J. Marks to talk about the artificial intelligence industry, how it’s used by Big Tech, and AI’s exaggerated hype. How do we respond to AI when technology is changing every year? Additional Resources

Blake Lemoine and the LaMDA Question

_{229
Robert J. Marks
March 9, 2023}

ID the Future

Puncturing the Science-Faith Warfare Myth

_{1726
Michael Newton Keas
March 22, 2023}

On today’s ID the Future, join host and geologist Casey Luskin and historian of science Michael Keas for a lively conversation puncturing a series of anti-Christian myths about the history of science, including the Dark Ages myth, the flat-earth myth, the myth that the discovery of how big the universe is rendered humanity insignificant, and the simplistic revisionist history of Galileo and the Inquisition. What about the claim in the recent Cosmos TV series that in abandoning his traditional Jewish faith, seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza was able to provide an improved framework for doing science? As Keas argues, the truth is just the opposite. Spinoza, he says, abandoned a key tenet of Judeo-Christian theology that had proven vital to the Read More ›

How a Teacher Wrecked Biology for Me, and How I Got Past It

_{1725
Tom Gilson
March 20, 2023}

On today’s ID the Future, Tom Gilson, a writer and editor for The Stream, shares his experiences in high school biology. Important mysteries (i.e., major problems) with evolutionary theory were hurried past and papered over, and yet his biology teacher could take an entire class period to tell Charles Darwin’s life story, and then repeat the same class, virtually verbatim, five more times that same semester. Tune in to hear how the class put Tom Gilson off of biology, but how he now finds the subject fascinating, thanks to the work of intelligent design researchers and the larger community of life scientists. Gilson’s commentary is taken from, and builds on, a recent essay of his, available at Evolution News.

Aeschliman on C. S. Lewis, Scientism, and The Restoration of Man

_{1724
Michael Aeschliman
March 17, 2023}

Michael Aeschliman explores Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, its defense of natural law, and its bracing takedown of scientism.

Humanize

Rod Dreher on the Crisis of Western Civilization

_{13
Wesley J. Smith
March 13, 2023}

Western Civilization is in crisis. It is becoming unmoored from its Judeo-Christian roots and the belief in the unique dignity of every human life, leading to destructive progressive social policies that some believe threaten us with a form of therapeutic authoritarianism. One such commentator is my guest today on Humanize. Rod Dreher is an American journalist and best-selling author. He Read More ›

Alex Schadenberg on the Canadian Euthanasia Epidemic

_{12
Wesley J. Smith
February 20, 2023}

No modern society has embraced lethal injection euthanasia with the enthusiasm of Canada, where not only the terminally ill can be killed by doctors but also people with chronic conditions and disabilities. Soon, people with mental illnesses will qualify for a doctor-hastened death. In 2021, more than 10,000 Canadians were euthanized by doctors or nurse practitioners. As recently as 2014, Read More ›

Tim Goeglein on the Case for Teaching the Great American Story

_{11
Wesley J. Smith
February 6, 2023}

Abraham Lincoln famously called the United States of America, “the last best Hope on earth.” Throughout our history, most Americans believed that. So did countless people from other countries who left their homes behind to come here in pursuit of the American dream — including my grandmother who immigrated from Italy in 1910 as a 16 year-old to help free Read More ›