human vs machine
The very notion of machine thinking used to strike us as strange, when we first heard of it. How can a machine think? It seemed obvious that only people can think. However, it is my belief that much of what passes for thinking by both people and computers is now machine thinking. And this is the source of our biggest problems.
My primary source here is Iain McGilchrist’s book The Master and his Emissary: the Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World. But other people have weighed in on this subject, such as Martin Buber, Ortega y Gasset, and Karl Jaspers. By direct contrast, the popular mind is remarkably devoid of anything resembling thinking – it already knows everything, it believes, and thinking is not necessary, and even dangerous.
The function of poetry, for example, is to provide insights into the nature of things, and until recently it was highly esteemed. Now people avoid it strenuously. They are much too fine for that crude sort of thing.
I want to make my position clear from the start. I believe people have been turned into things. They have focused on their precious things so much they have become like them themselves. But I have also noticed that I am almost alone in believing this. Psychologists have not noticed this at all, and seem determined to overlook it. Philosophers, with a few notable exceptions, which I have mentioned already, have not noticed it – quite to my amazement.
And I have noticed something even more amazing – people have turned against themselves and are busy destroying everything, including themselves. This is obvious to me, but not anyone else. I am left wondering if I am crazy, or everyone else is. I suspect it is a combination of both.
This morning I want to examine this subject from an unusual perspective – that of software development. This interesting activity involves both human and machine intelligence. Humans are busy here making their machines more intelligent. With little awareness, it seems to me, of what
My primary source here is Iain McGilchrist’s book The Master and his Emissary: the Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World. But other people have weighed in on this subject, such as Martin Buber, Ortega y Gasset, and Karl Jaspers. By direct contrast, the popular mind is remarkably devoid of anything resembling thinking – it already knows everything, it believes, and thinking is not necessary, and even dangerous.
The function of poetry, for example, is to provide insights into the nature of things, and until recently it was highly esteemed. Now people avoid it strenuously. They are much too fine for that crude sort of thing.
I want to make my position clear from the start. I believe people have been turned into things. They have focused on their precious things so much they have become like them themselves. But I have also noticed that I am almost alone in believing this. Psychologists have not noticed this at all, and seem determined to overlook it. Philosophers, with a few notable exceptions, which I have mentioned already, have not noticed it – quite to my amazement.
And I have noticed something even more amazing – people have turned against themselves and are busy destroying everything, including themselves. This is obvious to me, but not anyone else. I am left wondering if I am crazy, or everyone else is. I suspect it is a combination of both.
This morning I want to examine this subject from an unusual perspective – that of software development. This interesting activity involves both human and machine intelligence. Humans are busy here making their machines more intelligent. With little awareness, it seems to me, of what