WILL COMPUTERS SURPASS THE HUMAN MIND?
Computers have come a long way in such a short space of time. Random Access Memory (RAM) used to be measured in kilobytes (KB), but has now evolved into gigabytes (GB). Hard Disk Drive's (HDD's) are much the same story; changing from megabytes (MB) to gigabytes (GB), or even terabytes (TB). Take a look at this chart to get your head around the byte terminology.
It's the main computers brain (the processor), however, that has dramatically become more complex and sophisticated. Take the first ever Apple Macintosh as an example, which had an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor with 128 KB of RAM. That in today's standards is extremely slow; to prove a point lets compare it with the latest Apple iMac. With a 2.8 GHz Quad Core processor running on 16GB of RAM, the new iMac provides extreme computing power.
Now, do all these developments mean computers are becoming gradually closer to surpassing the human mind? In 1997, Garry Kasperov took part in an experiment by IBM to beat it's chess playing computer named 'Deep Blue'. The machine won two games, lost one and drew three, therefore proving more intelligent than the human counterpart (who was the reigning world champion). This was a glimpse of how machines could easily become more superior than the human race.
"A machine that can think remains the dream; and it's still many years and quite a few startling breakthroughs away."
Computer History Museum
Numerous films have also showcased how artificial intelligence and robotics could go wrong. A fantastic example is I, Robot. This demonstrates how robots could have emotions and turn against humanity even when programmed with the 'Three Laws of Robotics' written by Isaac Asimov.
However, modern day computers are useless without a form of operating system. Turn on any computer with a blank hard drive and nothing will happen. In essence, computers can only become more intelligent with programming or development by human beings. Therefore, if acting carelessly, we could cause one of mankind's creations to turn against us; possibly resulting in huge consequences.
Posted on 12/01/2009 by JUDICIOUS JOE and filed under
DIGITAL CULTURES
| 0 Comments »
It's the main computers brain (the processor), however, that has dramatically become more complex and sophisticated. Take the first ever Apple Macintosh as an example, which had an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor with 128 KB of RAM. That in today's standards is extremely slow; to prove a point lets compare it with the latest Apple iMac. With a 2.8 GHz Quad Core processor running on 16GB of RAM, the new iMac provides extreme computing power.
Now, do all these developments mean computers are becoming gradually closer to surpassing the human mind? In 1997, Garry Kasperov took part in an experiment by IBM to beat it's chess playing computer named 'Deep Blue'. The machine won two games, lost one and drew three, therefore proving more intelligent than the human counterpart (who was the reigning world champion). This was a glimpse of how machines could easily become more superior than the human race.
"A machine that can think remains the dream; and it's still many years and quite a few startling breakthroughs away."
Computer History Museum
Numerous films have also showcased how artificial intelligence and robotics could go wrong. A fantastic example is I, Robot. This demonstrates how robots could have emotions and turn against humanity even when programmed with the 'Three Laws of Robotics' written by Isaac Asimov.
However, modern day computers are useless without a form of operating system. Turn on any computer with a blank hard drive and nothing will happen. In essence, computers can only become more intelligent with programming or development by human beings. Therefore, if acting carelessly, we could cause one of mankind's creations to turn against us; possibly resulting in huge consequences.
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