Furbidden Knowledge

What makes machines more alive than dolls?

This episode of the radiolab podcast titled Furbidden Knowledge, features an interview with Freedom Baird a former graduate student at the MIT media lab. During the episode, Baird and hosts perform a so called ¨emotional turing test¨ on a group of 7 and 8 year olds. Presenting the children with a Barbie doll, a Furby and a real hamster, they take a look at how long the children are comfortable holding each one upside down.

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What Will it Take to Make a Machine Conscious?

While intelligent machines are capable of defeating the chess and jeopardy pros, there are tasks a six year old can beat them at in seconds

When we look at the picture on the left, it’s obvious that something’s wrong with the picture on the bottom. The human brain’s capability to integrate knowledge is what allows us to recognize that  keyboards and computers fit well together while plants and computers… not so much.

Christof Koch, Cognitive and behavioural biology professor at the California Institute of Technology and Giulio Tononi, professor in consciousness science at
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