Imagine if the first computers man was able to create worked in pretty much the same way the human brain works. Imagine if they were pretty decent at reasoning, and terrible at calculating things quickly without error. Image that instead of having a quest for artificial intelligence, we had a quest for a "really fast, really accurate data cruncher." It'd be a different world. It definitely makes me grateful that we have humans *and* computers, each very useful in their own way.
The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
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It was a pretty interesting talk, worth listening to. Gives a whole new meaning to all the little cronjobs and RSS scrapers we've all been hacking on...
http://fora.tv/media/rss/Long_Now_Podcasts/podcast-2008-08-08-suarez.mp3