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Article 2062 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Man vs. Machine?
Message-ID: <12676@pitt.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 91 14:55:18 GMT
References: <YAMAUCHI.91Nov27024148@indigo.cs.rochester.edu> <Yp4.IpvQB4k@catzen.GUN.de> <5Sf2PArrMm.@catzen.GUN.de>
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Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
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In article <5Sf2PArrMm.@catzen.GUN.de> scot@catzen.GUN.de writes:

>There it is again, the 'want' word =8). Computers don't 'want' anything
>unless we tell them to, and you are also assuming that they will have 
>political or economic power. Both would have to be given to them by humans, 
>since they are unlikely to pop up by themselves. Especially the 'power'
>question seems to be somewhat unlikely to me - unless you propose some 
>robot-type physical extension of the machine's will.
>

But we are trying to build computers that want things.  And we are
proposing and trying to build robot physical effectors.  And computers
already control so much of the information and information is so important
that it isn't a great leap to see how a willful computer could control
us to a large extent by controlling our information.  You are assuming
too, that the intelligent computers would have no human allies.  I think
that is an unreasonable assumption.  
-- 
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
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