It is uncertain whether the controversy surrounding Noel Biderman is hindering or boosting his success. Would ashleymadison.com — the site Biderman created to connect people who want to cheat on their spouses — have nearly as many users if pundits like Fox’s Sean Hannity hadn’t spent a significant portion of his showlambastingBiderman as an immoral businessman? Launched in 2001, the company has garnered hundreds of press mentions, most of which address the ethics of running a company that encourages infidelity....

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Intel. It seems that the company has designed what it is calling a “Classmate PC“. Noting that I was a parent myself, the representative asked me if I’d like to put a unit into the hands of my kids for a bit of time to see what they thought about it. Naturally I accepted. I also chuckled a bit, inside, at the thought of what condition some of these review units must show when they get back to Intel....

I’m going to start this with a couple of really obvious thoughts. First off, running a small business can be exceptionally challenging. Dealing with the challenges that come up can be even harder. Between dealing with issues of billing, inventory, job posting, communication and the rest, there are a wealth of options out there. The extraordinary down side of having so many options, though, is that you’ll often find yourself with about 15 different tabs or applications open just to get through your day....

This article is part of “the philosophy of artificial intelligence,” a series of posts that explore the ethical, moral, and social implications of AI today and in the future. If a computer gives you all the right answers, does it mean that it is understanding the world as you do? This is a riddle that artificial intelligence scientists have been debating for decades. And discussions of understanding, consciousness, and true intelligence are resurfacing as deep neural networks have spurred impressive advances in language-related tasks....

Can AI develop a sense of right and wrong? The learning system “Conscience is an individual’s judgment about what is normally right or wrong, typically, but not always, reflecting some standard of a group to which the individual feels attached,” Churchland writes in her book. But how did humans develop the ability to understand to adopt these rights and wrongs? To answer that question, Dr. Churchland takes us back through time, when our first warm-blooded ancestors made their apparition....