Thinking Machines : Can There Be? Are We? Essay

In this article, Thompson’s uses chess anecdotes to make it easier to understand why technology and our brains work together best. Steven Cramton and Zackary Stephen were two New England men who beat the most powerful chess computer. “Why could these relative amateurs beat chess players with far more experience and raw talent? Because Cramton and Stephen were expert at collaborating with computers. They knew when to rely on human smarts and when to rely on the machine’s advice.” (345) This experience shows us that Thompson's thinks that when it comes to technology versus man, you don’t

Human beings not only have the ability to think but also have imitation that can help them to think comprehensively. Other species may have the ability to think but they do not have the ability to think about things in different ways. Blackmore mentions “we use the word learning for simple association or classical conditioning (which almost all animals can do), for learning by trial and error or operant conditioning (which many animals can do) and for learning by imitation (which almost none can do). ”(34). The imitation is the ability for people to think in different and more comprehensive ways. When people think, they can not only think in their own way but also think by other’s ways. This ability makes human beings unique because if they can think in different ways they can get more information, which can help them make the decision. Human beings’ thinking also has the peculiarity, which is hard be imitated. Blackmore points out “Computers may not play chess in the same way as humans, but their success show how wrong we can be about intelligence”(32). Human thinking is hard to copy because it is a very comprehensive process. It is hard to copy even though for the AI, which made by human beings. The computers do not have the ability to imitate, thus the computer may be able to get the win in the chess game, but they can never get the ability and skill about

In a guest column, Computers vs. Brains on the Opinionator of The New York Times, Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang analyzed some of the arguments by inventor Raymond Kurzweil, one of the leading inventors of our time, in his most recent futurist manifesto: “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology” (2005). Kurzweil estimates that machines will inevitably be able to surpass our thinking capabilities within a few decades. Kurzweil's speculative reasoning has been heavily debated and challenged. In Aamodt and Wang's article they point out that there are fundamental differences between our brains and computers that makes Kurzweil's predictions improbable. The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the arguments of sides, Kurzweil's book

One of the hottest topics that modern science has been focusing on for a long time is the field of artificial intelligence, the study of intelligence in machines or, according to Minsky, “the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men”.(qtd in Copeland 1). Artificial Intelligence has a lot of applications and is used in many areas. “We often don’t notice it but AI is all around us. It is present in computer games, in the cruise control in our cars and the servers that route our email.” (BBC 1). Different goals have been set for the science of Artificial Intelligence, but according to Whitby the most mentioned idea about the goal of AI is provided by the Turing Test. This test is also called the

Can machines be conscious? Well, the answer actually depends on the kind of machines you are talking about. Based on quite a few instances and research work done on this particular topic, I think that the machines can indeed be categorized as conscious beings and in the following paragraphs I will be providing a couple of examples in order to support my argument.

Living in the technology age has opened up doors for many different types of technology. Computers are very helpful to todays life because they assist you in memory and activity. This raises the question, can computers think. Turning believed that computers can think because he believes computers has the necessary general intelligent action to think. Searle argues against the idea saying “only a very special kinds of machines, namely brains” can think. I agree with Searle’s argument because computers don’t have brains, but are programmed to do what humans want it to do. I disagree with Turning’s argument because computers are specifically programmed by humans to do what we want them to do.

IBM's Deep Blue Chess computer. This marked a milestone for AI because Gary is undoubtedly at the time the best chess player in the world. The outcome of the game left Gary Kasparov epitomized by technology and beaten. According to author Mark Gibbs, his discussion of the aspects that revolve around this interaction with computers relates to this specific case study. He states, "I reckon that we'll eventually get machines so behaviorally complex that it won't just be a matter of reading the manual and loading the software. Applications will be built from so many complex components that they will have to psychoanalyze and persuaded into doing what is required" (Proquest 2). Gibbs analyzed simply what he believed to be proven facts that intelligence has reached a far more complex stage. Computer intelligence can beat an all time winning chess champion, it was also distinctively showing personality like traits as Mr. Kasparov observed. The world of computers and technology has just begun to shape and mold itself into whatever conclusion artificial intelligence will reveal in the future.

Humans, for a long time, have thought that they are unique in their intelligence. It has set them apart from other animals and allowed them to conquer the world. Today, we use our intelligence to create technology that can carry multiple people across the world in merely hours and to destroy a significant portion of the planet with the push of a button. As we become increasingly complex and allow machines to perform the tasks once requiring human labor, we are attempting to reach the greatest task that humans have to complete: thinking.

Alan Turing put this argument forward in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence”. His opening pages of the paper begin with the words; "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?” (Alan Turing 1950). My main argument to this is that a computer does not have the ability to think, primarily because it was created rather than ‘born and raised’.

In his paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Alan Turing sets out to answer the question of whether machines can think in the same humans can by conceptualizing the question in concrete terms. In simple terms, Turing redefines the question by posing whether a machine can replicate the cognition of a human being. Yet, some may object to the notion that Turing’s new question effectively captures the nature of machines’ capacity for thought or consciousness, such as John Searle. In his Chinese room thought experiment, Searle outlines a scenario that implies machines’ apparent replication of human cognition does not yield conscious understanding. While Searle’s Chinese thought experiment demonstrates how a Turing test is not sufficient to establish that a machine can possess consciousness or thought, this argument does not prove that machines are absolutely incapable of consciousness or thought. Rather, given the ongoing uncertainty of the debate regarding the intelligence of machines, there can be no means to confirm or disconfirm the conscious experience of machines as well as the consciousness of humans by extension of that principle.

Can a computer have a mind? This question has been debated for decades by philosophers, mathematicians, physicists' etc. Alan Turing, a mathematician, he first addressed the issue of artificial intelligence in his 1950 paper, "Computing machinery and intelligence," and proposed an experiment known as the “Turing Test”—an effort to create an intelligence design standard for the tech industry. He also said, “if we cannot distinguish between the answers a computer gives to questions and the answers a human gives, then the computer has a mind” ,but I stand at a different view. I believe that computers are not conscious in the same way a human mind is conscious. To come to such a conclusion, as to whether or not computers are conscious the same way as a human mind, what we need to understand first is what exactly it means to be "conscious”. To be conscious means that one is aware of their existence, possesses feelings and has thoughts of their own.

Presently, the current investment of the company is in artificial intelligence. In 2011, IBM presented Watson, a supercomputer, based on cognitive science, on an American television quiz show “Jeopardy”. The robot, competed with two of the best winners, the challenge of the competition was to guess the question for the answer informed by the presenter. Watson won the game. This was a more popular form encountered by IBM to promote the novel system they are waggling to be a milestone in the IT industry. Pisani (2014), consider this novel computing will likewise modify the way Business is normally conducted. The cognitive computers are not able to think by itself, however, it is capable to learn. This system has ability to absorb

“The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do” (Skinner, 2017). Long before the birth of computers and the internet, technology reigned as one of mankind’s chief focal points. The greatest minds have always collaborated and competitively jostled for position on the world’s stage. Along the way, remarkable progress has been made. These visionaries have enabled the world to move and travel faster, have cured diseases, and expanded the banks of available information beyond measure.

In the future, we may be able to build a computer that is comparable to the human brain, but not until we truly understand one thing. Lewis Thomas talks about this in his essay, "Computers." He says, "It is in our collective behavior that we are most mysterious. We won't be able to construct machines like ourselves until we've understood this, and we're not even close" (Thomas 473). Thomas wrote this essay in 1974, and although we have made many technological advances