Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!bionet!arisia!roo!janssen From: janssen@parc.xerox.com (Bill Janssen) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Thinking Machines Message-ID: Date: 3 Dec 90 06:32:13 GMT References: <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> Sender: news@parc.xerox.com Organization: Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 30 In-reply-to: lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu's message of 30 Nov 90 04:01:02 GMT In article <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> lunwic@aix03.aix.rpi.edu (Jeffrey G Lunn) writes: 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. 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. I do not consider this a meaningful way of life. Well, read Roger Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind", for a bit of reassurance that we don't have to worry about this. Of course, futurists such as Hans Moravec think that it is inevitable that machine brains will evolve to be many times faster and deeper than ours. He paints a picture of godlike robots (and no, not imbued with the "3 Laws") keeping humans in game preserves, where they are made comfortable, and encouraged to reproduce, while robots tend to the serious business of the galaxy. His estimated time to this state: ~50 years. Not to mention nanotechnology's megacomputers... Bill -- Bill Janssen janssen@parc.xerox.com (415) 494-4763 Xerox Palo Alto Research Center 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, California 94304 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com