Technologic

Ok so I missed last Thursday’s class because of illness. And I finally got myself to the doctor this week, turns out my body is feebly attempting to fight off a pretty bad infection of a spider bite! I guess thats what happens when you go four- wheeler mudding at night!

Although I was not in class Thursday, I did catch up through Twitter a little bit and I have a few thoughts to add about the idea of a computer and a human being similar “thinkers” (or is it just: thinkers?). I agree that we all humanize computers in that we curse them and such, but honestly we humanize many things. I mean just this morning, my roommate said, “I love you, jacket!” and a girl down my hall said, “My Nalgene is my best friend, I couldn’t survive without it.”

On a different note, I saw that a few people tweeted on the rejection of human-like computer thinking. Well I think that now, this idea is still at the forefront of an ethical argument. If we think about the possibilities of computers, we know that as of right now, computers don’t formulate their own ideas, but rather assemble the ideas of others. We are working toward a point however when computers may have individual thoughts, which causes fear about what this will mean for humans. First, would this go against our religious ideas of creation and violate the ideas of God? Second, would humans lose the title of the superior race? And lastly, would the computers hold animosity towards humans and produce an iRobot- type war? I think that a lot of these fears are valid notions, but I can’t help feeling like I really want a Rosie (the Jetsons’ robot/ house keeper)!