Do you remember where you first learned about Neurons and that the brain is made of them and that they basically are who we are? Was it at school, high school, university? Was it from a parent or a friend? Or maybe from a book?
I'm just curious about everyone's experiences :)
brain
Perhaps the most (in)famous and illustrious American computer scientist and acknowledged principal pioneer of the discipline now known as artificial intelligence (AI), Professor Marvin Minsky of MIT, once pronounced—a belief he still holds—that ‘‘the brain is merely a meat machine.’’ It is significant that the English language distinguishes between ‘‘flesh’’ on the one hand, and ‘‘meat’’ on the other. The latter is dead and may be eaten, thrown in the garbage, fed to pigs, and so on. Flesh, on the other hand, is living matter and, as such, deserves the respect and dignity for life of which, among others, Albert Schweitzer spoke eloquently. The word ‘‘merely’’ in Minsky’s sentence means essentially ‘‘nothing but,’’ that is, also not deserving unusual respect. His statement is a clear reflection of a profound contempt for life that, as I see it, is shared explicitly by important sectors of the AI community, the artificial intelligentsia, as well as many scientists, engineers, and ordinary people. Daniel C. Dennett, an important American philosopher, once said that we must give up our awe of life if we are to make further progress in AI.
#AI #ComputerScience #life #brain #mind
15-Oct-2025
Did lead (#Pb) limit #brain and #language #development in #Neanderthals
and other extinct hominids?
Ancient human relatives were exposed to lead up to two million years ago, according to a new study. However, a #gene #mutation may have protected modern human brains, allowing language to flourish.
META’S REAL AI WAS HIDING
IN PLAIN SIGHT. 💎
I watched a video this morning called 'The (Overdue) Collapse of Meta,' expecting another story about a giant technology company finally coming unstuck.
BUT THAT REALLY WASN'T THE STORY.
Meta is still making extraordinary amounts of money.
The metaverse was a spectacular failure. Zuckerberg renamed the company around it, talked about a billion people eventually inhabiting virtual worlds, and poured tens of billions of dollars into trying to make it happen.
PEOPLE MOSTLY DIDN'T COME.
But while everyone was laughing at cartoon legs and expensive headsets, something else inside Meta was working extraordinarily well.
THE ADVERTISING MACHINE
For more than a decade, Meta has been using AI to learn from the tiny signals produced by billions of human brains. What we stop to look at. What we click. What we ignore. What keeps us scrolling?
WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO BUY
And increasingly, what we might be about to do. That system became astonishingly good at turning human behaviour into advertising revenue. Which changes the story rather dramatically.
META DIDN'T FAIL TO BUILD POWERFUL AI.
It was built years ago. It just wasn't sitting there chatting pleasantly to us. It was behind Facebook and Instagram, watching behaviour and learning how to predict it.
And the enormous advertising business generated by that machinery is now helping to finance Meta's next gigantic gamble: superintelligence, data centres, researchers, and infrastructure costing tens of billions of dollars.
There is something almost perfect about that. The metaverse failed because people didn't particularly want what Meta was selling. The advertising machine succeeded because we WERE what Meta was selling. And perhaps that is the part worth paying attention to.
Because sometimes the most important question about technology isn't:
DID IT WORK?
It is:
WHAT DID IT LEARN TO DO TO US?
@3goodthings @DigitalCoup @meditation @economics_that_works
#Meta #Facebook #Instagram #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #SurveillanceCapitalism #SocialMedia #BigTech #Privacy #Technology #DigitalRights #people #humans #brain
Edited 17d ago