Psychology & Artificial Intelligence: 6 Part Series

The term “magical thinking” is usually used to heap scorn on scientifically unsupported conjectures, but it is a real phenomenon. The fact that magic has been a part of so many human cultures indicates that it should be considered an aspect of human psychology and not dismissed out of hand...

People “intuitively” understand that other people have thoughts and feelings that, though they differ in the particulars at any given moment, are basically of the same kind as they themselves experience.

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment.

The history of AI has been driven as much by human psychology as by technology. Everyone understands its power and desirability, and everybody has an innate sense that they will recognize it, as always by its results, when it arrives.

Like alchemy which, through the transmutation of “base metals” into “noble metals,” aimed at nothing less than an elixir of immortality, the very idea of AI fires the imagination. We say that intelligence defines us as human beings.

Part 1 AI: The Seductive Allure May 10, 2022 Part 2 AI: Hope, Hype and Disappointment May 24, 2022 Part 3: AI and Cognitive Dissonance Part 4: AI and Theory of Mind