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Category: robotics/AI – Page 334

Terrence Deacon — Philosophy of Transhumanism & Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence and transhumanism.

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Humanity’s future is now framed by artificial intelligence (AI) and increasing interventions in the human body to cure and to enhance, i.e., transhumanism. Considering the stakes and the dangers, a philosophical perspective is imperative.

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Terrence William Deacon is an American neuroanthropologist. He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Anthropology and member of the Cognitive Science Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Humans have ability to detect objects without touching them

In terms of objects, human touch has typically been understood to be limited to physical touch, where we detect objects through contact with our skin.

However, recent findings in animal have challenged this view. It is known that certain wading birds such as sandpipers and plovers, for example, use a form of ‘remote touch’ to detect prey hidden beneath the sand using their beaks.

Remote touch allows the detection of objects buried under granular materials, such as sand or soil, through subtle mechanical signals transmitted through the material when pressure is applied nearby.

The new study, published in IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), investigated whether humans share a similar capability to touch objects remotely.

The researchers asked 12 participants to move their fingers gently through sand to locate a hidden cube before physically touching it.

Remarkably, the results revealed a comparable ability to that seen in wading birds, despite humans lacking the specialised beak structures that enable this sense in birds.

By modelling the physical aspects of the remote touch phenomenon, the study found that human hands are remarkably sensitive, detecting the presence of buried objects by perceiving small displacements in the sand surrounding them with 70% precision within the expected detectable range.

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How AI personas could be used to detect human deception

Can an AI persona detect when a human is lying—and should we trust it if it can?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has had many recent advances and continues to evolve in scope and capability. A new Michigan State University-led study is diving deeper into how well AI can understand humans by using it to detect human deception.

In the study, published in the Journal of Communication, researchers from MSU and the University of Oklahoma conducted 12 experiments with over 19,000 AI participants to examine how well AI personas were able to detect deception and truth from human subjects.

Self-adapting LLMs behave more like students to absorb new knowledge

In an MIT classroom, a professor lectures while students diligently write down notes they will reread later to study and internalize key information ahead of an exam.

Humans know how to learn new information, but can’t do this in the same way. Once a fully trained LLM has been deployed, its “brain” is static and can’t permanently adapt itself to new knowledge.

This means that if a user tells an LLM something important today, it won’t remember that information the next time this person starts a new conversation with the chatbot.

AI detects hidden objects on chest scans better than radiologists

Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can spot hard-to-see objects lodged in patients’ airways better than expert radiologists.

In a study published in npj Digital Medicine, the AI model outperformed radiologists in checking CT scans for objects that don’t show up well on scans. The paper is titled “Automated Detection of Radiolucent Foreign Body Aspiration on Chest CT Using Deep Learning.”

These accidentally inhaled objects can cause coughing, choking, difficulty breathing and sometimes lead to more serious complications if not treated properly.

‘We’re already living in science fiction’: The neurotech revolution

From translating thoughts into words to allowing paralyzed people to walk, the field of neurotechnology has been quietly surging ahead, raising hopes of medical breakthroughs—and profound ethical concerns.

Some observers even think that neurotech could end up being as revolutionary as the far more hyped rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

“People do not realize how much we’re already living in ,” King’s College London researcher Anne Vanhoestenberghe told AFP.

Study finds users disclose more to AI chatbots introduced as human

“One of the most surprising findings was that participants disclosed more and felt more comforted by a chatbot introduced as a human, even though almost everyone knew they were still talking to a chatbot. This means the effect wasn’t driven by deception or belief that the chatbot was human, but rather by the framing itself, how the chatbot was introduced and named. That subtle change alone was enough to activate more social and affective responses. Therefore, people’s behaviour toward chatbots can be shaped not just by what the chatbot does, but by what they expect it to be, showing how powerful simple context cues are in guiding our interactions with AI.”

Not all the differences favored the chatbot presented as a human. Although participants disclosed less to Chatbot D12, they rated it as slightly friendlier. Their answers to D12 were also more sentimental, meaning they expressed stronger emotions, both positive and negative. Despite these differences, participants did not rate either chatbot as significantly more trustworthy, and both were rated similarly in terms of overall interaction quality.

“When framing a chatbot more like a person, by giving it a human name and introducing it as a human, people tend to open up more, attribute social traits to it, and feel more comforted when speaking with it, even when they suspect it’s still a bot. But there’s a catch: when a ‘human-like’ chatbot doesn’t fully meet our social expectations, people judge it as less friendly or trustworthy. So, design cues that make chatbots feel human can encourage self-disclosure, but they need to be balanced with transparency and realistic expectations.”