From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!spool.mu.edu!caen!destroyer!ubc-cs!unixg.ubc.ca!kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca!access.usask.ca!skorpio!choy Wed Sep 16 21:22:29 EDT 1992
Article 6839 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: choy@skorpio.usask.ca (I am a terminator.)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.robotics,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Indistinguishability is a Scientific Criterion
Message-ID: <1992Sep9.171309.23153@access.usask.ca>
Date: 9 Sep 92 17:13:09 GMT
References: <1992Sep6.200121.4383@Princeton.EDU> <Bu7oK5.BIK@sun3.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca>
Sender: choy@skorpio (I am a terminator.)
Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
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In article <Bu7oK5.BIK@sun3.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca>, ward@sun17.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Ward) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep6.200121.4383@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes:
|> 

|> One does not make machines that merely duplicate human function - they must
|> do it better.  If you wish to create a thinking machine, then it must think
|> better than a human (otherwise, I can tell you of a lot simpler (and
|> _definitely_ more fun :-) method of creating thinking beings).
|> 
|> Of course, the only thing that puts us at the top of the evolutionary heap
|> seems to be the fact that we outthink everthing else on the planet.  So, if
|> you still want to create a thinking machine, be prepared to become No. 2.

Can we say that computers are extensions of ourselves? When we use an
automobile to move our butts to point B, we benefit from the machine.
When a thinking machine tells us something that we didn't know, we benifit
from the machine. We could well have come up with the same knowledge
without the machine given enough time.


Let's look at the brain. It seems to have independently functioning
parts. There's something that handles sight and something else that
handles breathing. We can interface a computer to the brain. It'll
just be another functioning unit. Just like adding a boat trailer
to a truck. You just wind up turbocharging your brain.

Henry Choy
choy@cs.usask.ca


