Jan
27
What a scary thought!
January 27, 2009 | Tagged baylor_nms_s09 | 3 Comments
Before I share my thoughts on “Man-Computer Symbiosis” by Licklider, may I ask that someone tell me what were the highlights of today’s class? I have a cold and couldn’t get up in the morning.
Knowing that humans, who have started with Adam and Eve, a people solely dependent on nature and each other, have changed with the invention of the computer so much that we might be so dependent with what we have created that we are compared to a fig tree and Blastophaga is a VERY scary thought.
Is this even a good idea? For us to become so dependent on computers, something we have created? Maybe I’ve watched to many movies and read too many books, but I keep thinking it’s a bad idea and we might be overruled by computers instead of a mutual relationship or man ruling computers. What if we are taken over? Technology is increasing at a mind-boggling rate. In many ways, humans can use technology to create something much greater than human beings–much more powerful. What if–is this a farfetched thought?–but what if computers’ artificial intelligence will go beyond artificial?…
Comments
3 Comments so far
Interesting post. We’ve come a long way in the last fifty years, from “personal computers? who’d need anything like that?” to “personal computers? are they ruining society?” The idea of symbiosis tries to stand on a middle ground, in which human beings and computers actually work together to human advantage. Yet the idea of the cyborg also emerges from this paradigm–and one could argue that anyone with a computerized medical device is already part computer, though typically we wouldn’t say so.
Interesting questions. Can we truly use our tools instead of being used by them? I’ll be interested to see what you make of the Engelbart essay in this regard.
i think that if computers remain tools for our use for work then we’re fine…however when our computers begin to do things for us that werent too difficult to being with- when we become truly lazy (and we may be well on our way there)- thats when were in trouble…
once people stop thinking for themselves and depend on AI to determine decisions and our lives, then we have given machines control of our lives.
In my opinion, yes, this is a far-fetched thought. I don’t really see there being any possibility of a future like the Matrix movies, or even ‘A.I.,’ where robots surpass humans and become a threat to humanity as well. I’m not saying that people couldn’t potentially make computer capable of being dangerous, but I do think we’d have to make an almost impossible, complex series of stupid mistakes to get ourselves to a point where computers are truly controlling us on a large scale, or are unstoppable.
Besides, as long as we abide by the 3 laws of robotics, we’ll be fine, right?