VAST 200 Computers and Society

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VAST 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
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Announcements

• 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)

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Kurzweils Vision of the Future

• Opening of Ch. 1The intelligence of machines -
  nonbiological entities - will exceed human
  intelligence early in this next century.

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Kurzweils 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?
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Searles 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?
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Rays 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?
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Coming Up

• Course Evaluations
• WA Evaluations
• Course retrospective and discussion