Slashdot is linking today to an article that considers the implications of the 10 year anniversary of the defeat of chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov by IBM’s Deep Blue computer. The article (here), written by philosopher Daniel Dennett, considers the possible differences, or lack of differences, between humans and machines. I’ve linked to other pieces considered by Daniel Dennett on this blog, and I consider him to be an articulate and fair judge over matters of this type. It is highly worth your time to read this piece and to think it over a bit.
Do Humans Differ from Machines?
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Hi Ian, I find it very interesting you gather lots of interesting resources in this single blog. I’ve already started subscribing it and I find it excellent! Keep writing, please
About this article, I personally believe that one day people will notice how HUMANS itself are underestimated and much focus is/was put on “MACHINES” . This may not be the best example and may not even be 100% related to all this, but take a look at the example of, say, Ruby’s language itself. I’m not here to advocate but one of the philosophies of its creator is, quote: “Often people, especially computer engineers, focus on the machines. They think, “By doing this, the machine will run faster. By doing this, the machine will run more effectively. By doing this, the machine will something something something.” They are focusing on machines. But in fact we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves.”. However, I go even further than just “programming”, and think about exactly like you said: “Do Humans differ from Machines?”. Personally, I believe that machines have great potential and many times it’s often advocated that “machines will (or have already) surpass humans”. Probably they already do, I mean, of course they can, say, make calculations much faster than we do… but how much focus did we put onto our own capabilities and develop them? I always heard people saying that we humans only use less than 10% of our total capabilities. How can we compare ourselves to machines if we don’t even think about ourselves and how our body and mind is itself “limited” by “something”? Having this said, I really believe one day (when people become 100% obsolete by machines and fed up with them) that we will start focusing in ourselves and our own “undiscovered” capabilities.