The Limits of Computation | Robert J. Marks II

11/29/18 • 21 min

Addressing one of today's most acclaimed technological frontiers, Michael Medved and professor of electrical and computer engineering Robert Marks discuss the limits of artificial intelligence. They begin with definitions — What is a computer? What is an algorithm? — before tackling some pervasive media myths. Can a computer innovate or only imitate? Can computers now really do anything different from the Turing Machine, devised as a model by Alan Turing in the 1930s? Could a computer be programmed to interact with humans like the sinister HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey? The answer is yes, says Bob Marks, and whatever flaws such a machine displayed would be the faults inadvertently woven into it by its human programmers.

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The American Miracle | Stephen Meyer with Michael Medved

Stephen Meyer acts as host and quester to discuss Michael Medved's latest book, The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic. Topics includes the settling of North America and the momentous Constitutional Convention. The series of “happy accidents” is strongly suggestive of providence, “divine favor,” as many Americans have perceived today and in the past. Medved makes a couple of additional provocative points. First, that seeing “design” in your country’s history, or you own marriage or your life, is healthy and beneficial. He discusses his own marriage in this context. Second, that it keeps front and center in your mind, as a citizen, that America’s “miracles” are not meaningless accidents but instead are arranged to serve a goal: “serving the world” by rescuing it from evils including Communism and Nazism. He understands that mission as being still before us today.

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