Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!unsvax!jimi!tahoe!apple!autodesk!robertj
From: robertj@Autodesk.COM (Young Rob Jellinghaus)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Thinking Machines
Message-ID: <985@autodesk.COM>
Date: 30 Nov 90 22:17:58 GMT
Sender: news@Autodesk.COM
Organization: Autodesk, Inc., Sausalito, CA
Lines: 43

In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes:
>Suppose that one day we are capable of constructing
>computers that are able to think - that is, think in the sense that you or I
>do.

Wait forty to fifty years, and we'll have 'em.

>My question is,
>should we let such thinking machines exist?  I feel that people would be too
>tempted to let such machines take over previously human thinking tasks such
>as figuring out difficult mathematical problems or searching for new elementary
>physics particles or even writing poetry.

Yeesh!  You seriously believe that a computer that could "solve problems" and
"construct hypotheses" could ergo write poetry?  Seems to me there are diff-
erent processes involved.  And as for solving difficult math problems, no
thank you!  I'd be happy to let a computer do _that_!

>It is possible that by letting
>machines do the cerebral work, the collective human mind would stagnate from
>lack of meaningful stimulation.  Then humans would live for nothing but to
>survive and to be as comfortable as possible.

Well, would you say that most humans on the planet base the meaning of their
lives on their ability to solve unsolved problems?  That's a pretty damn
narrow definition of what life is.

It's all evolution in action.  Our mental and physical capacities will, in
the next century, be drastically amplified by means of the machines we're
evolving.  We and they will together move beyond what we now think of as
humanity--new life forms will come into existence.  These "machines" won't
be mere machines any longer; they'll be alive.

I can see only richness and wonder coming from such a future.

>                                                - Jeff Lunn


--
Rob Jellinghaus                 | "Next time you see a lie being spread or
Autodesk, Inc.                  |  a bad decision being made out of sheer
robertj@Autodesk.COM            |  ignorance, pause, and think of hypertext."
{decwrl,uunet}!autodesk!robertj |    -- K. Eric Drexler, _Engines of Creation_


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