Wednesday, December 17, 2025

The Obtain: Pigeons’ position in creating AI, and Native artists’ tech interpretations

Folks on the lookout for precursors to synthetic intelligence usually level to science fiction by authors like Isaac Asimov or thought experiments just like the Turing take a look at. However an equally essential, if stunning and fewer appreciated, forerunner is American psychologist B.F. Skinner’s analysis with pigeons in the midst of the twentieth century.

Skinner believed that affiliation—studying, by way of trial and error, to hyperlink an motion with a punishment or reward—was the constructing block of each conduct, not simply in pigeons however in all residing organisms, together with human beings.

His “behaviorist” theories fell out of favor with psychologists and animal researchers within the Nineteen Sixties however had been taken up by laptop scientists who ultimately offered the muse for lots of the artificial-intelligence instruments from main corporations like Google and OpenAI. Learn the complete story.

—Ben Crair

This story is from our forthcoming print subject, which is all about safety. When you haven’t already, subscribe now to obtain future points as soon as they land.

Indigenous data meets synthetic intelligence

There isn’t any phrase for artwork in most Native American languages. As a substitute, the closest phrases converse to not objecthood however to motion and intention. Artwork just isn’t separate from life; it’s ceremony, instruction, design.

A brand new vanguard of Native artists are constructing on this precept. They’re united not by stereotypical weaving and carving or revanchist critique of Silicon Valley, however by way of their rejection of extractive information fashions in favor of relationship-based programs. Learn the complete story.

—Petala Ironcloud

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Articles