Title: VAST 200 Computers and Society
1VAST 200 - Computers and Society
- Lecture 19 - The Future According to Ray K.
- Spring 2004
Prof. John NestorECE DepartmentLafayette
CollegeEaston, Pennsylvania 18042nestorj_at_lafayet
te.edu
2Announcements
- Reading
- Are we Spritual Machines? Intro, Ch. 1, 2, 5
- Final Writing Assignment (3-4 pages)
- First draft due Friday, April 30
- Final draft due Wednesday, May 12 (can submit by
email)
3Kurzweils Vision of the Future
- Opening of Ch. 1The intelligence of machines -
nonbiological entities - will exceed human
intelligence early in this next century.
4Kurzweils Vision of the Future
- Some more specific predictions
- By 2019 a 1K computer will match the processing
power of the human brain. - By 2029 the software of intelligence will be in
place and a 1K computer will have the processing
power of 1,000 human brains. - Downloading ports between computers and humans
will replace normal learning.
Question Is this scenerio believable?
5Searles Critique of Kurzweil
- Computers are just doing calculations and Symbol
Processing - The Chinese Room argument
- Blurred distinction between observer-independent
and observer relative features of the world - Observer independent - features extrinsic to the
observer I.e. chemical reactions - Observer dependent - features requiring conscious
observers or agents (e.g., money, chess game,
etc.)
Question What are some observer-dependent
features that computer systems work with?
6Rays Critique of Kurzweil
- Quantum Mechanics Act of observation doesnt
cause uncertainty - measurement does - Turing Fallacy You cant create machine
intelligence by copying human brains - Cant exactly copy biological processes
- Cant manage software of the required complexity
- Non-Turing AI more likely to succeed
Question Early airplane designers tried to
emulate birds - why was this an unsuccessful
strategy?
7Coming Up
- Course Evaluations
- WA Evaluations
- Course retrospective and discussion