| As Dr. Samuel Johnson said in a
different era about ladies preaching, the surprising thing abut computers is not
that they think less well than a man, but that they think at all. The early
electronic computer did not have much going for it except a marvelous memory and
some good math skills. But. today the best models can be wired up to learn by
experience, follow an argument, ask proper questions and write poetry and music.
They can also carry on somewhat puzzling conversations. Computers imitate life. As computers get more complex, the imitation gets better. Finally, the line between the original and the copy becomes unclear. In another 15 years or so, we will see the computer as a new form of life. The opinion seems ridiculous because, for one thing, computers lack the drives and emotions of living creatures. But drives can be programmed into the computer's brain just as nature programmed them into our human brains as a part of the equipment for survival. Computers match people in some roles, and when fast decisions are needed in a crisis, they often surpass them. Having evolved when the pace of life was slower, the human brain has an inherent defect that prevents it from absorbing several streams of information simultaneously and acting on them quickly. Throw too many things at the brain at one time and it freezes up. We are still in control, but the capabilities of computers are increasing at a fantastic rate, while raw human intelligence is changing slowly, if at all. Computer power has increased ten times every eight years since 1946. In the 1990s, when the sixth generation appears, the reasoning power of an intelligence built out of silicon will begin to match that of the human brain. That does not mean the evolution of intelligence has ended on the earth. Judging by the past, we can expect that a new species will arise out of man, surpassing his achievements as he has surpassed those of his predecessor. Only a carbon chemistry enthusiast would assume that the new species must be man' s flesh-anti-blood descendants. The new kind of intelligent life is more likely to be made of silicon. |