I’m told a super computer called Watson will soon be a contestant on Jeopardy. “I’ll take signs the machines are taking over for a thousand, Alex.” Does this feel like the beginning of a Sci-Fi movie with a very unhappy ending to anyone else? I’m sure the Terminator’s back story was that he debuted on a game show before crushing mankind and then traveling back in time to stop the head of the resistance from being born.
QSN: How the man from the future, sent back in time by the Humans to ensure that the rebel leader is born, is the rebel leader’s father is a prime directive nightmare that still bothers me. I hate it when time traveling movies get cute.
Man won’t be happy until he completely makes himself obsolete. The day we say…
US: Look the machines can do all the work…
Is the day the machines say…
MACHINES: Then why do we need you. Human existence does not compute…
Why not let a computer host Jeopardy? Many movies already use computer generated actors. If the computers are doing everything we used to do then what is there for us to do? Spoken not like a technophobe but more a person who loves computers but loves people more.
Wouldn’t it be wonderfully terrifying to find that the most major share holder in the top 100 companies in the world is actually a computer that embezzled a nickel from everyone in the world back in the 80’s and invested it all in corporations. Crazy, but it would explain some things wouldn’t it?
Perhaps the human spirit will continue to reign over machine. Perhaps humans have that indescribable quality that Je ne sais quoi to win the battle against machine. John Henry beat the steam engine and then victoriously dropped dead. I hope we get to enjoy our win.
QSN = Quick Side Note
The Watson Super Computer competing on Jeopardy will air on February 14,15 & 16, 2011.
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2 comments:
There’s a book about all of this! Check out Stephen Baker’s FINAL JEOPARDY: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything. It’ll be in stores Feb 17 – but you can get an eBook now, online. Check out this piece on AllThingsD about it: http://tinyurl.com/4ouh4je.
"Spoken not like a technophobe but more a person who loves computers but loves people more."
...or maybe spoken as one who has decided -- having programmed computers in a previous career and currently killing audiences in the current career -- that pushing the human buttons is immensely more challenging, interesting, and rewarding to you than pushing those of the machine kind.
If so, I can certainly follow the logic. (Not hating on the technophiles, of course...it takes all kinds of passions to keep the whole thing going.)
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