Artificial Intelligence

                Several movies have been made about it, phones can now talk to you, and human-like robots have been created, yet artificial intelligence is still out of reach. Sergey Brin states that “Artificial intelligence would be the ultimate version of Google. We’re nowhere near doing that now. However, we can get incrementally closer to that, and that is basically what we work on” (172). Although some people believe artificial intelligence is attainable, I disagree as people today do not even know the full capacity of the human brain. So trying to duplicate such an unknown complex thing is impossible.

“The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter” stated Brin as he describes Google’s goals (172).  They are trying to create something that no one really wants. Yeah, a search engine that smart might come in handy, but more people fear something so powerful than ask for it. Car states “the desire to build a HAL-like system of artificial intelligence may seem strange to most people” (173) I believe this is true for many people do not like this idea. Several movies portray super computers getting too smart and trying to take over or destroy the humans. Since artificial intelligence has yet to be created, no one knows if they could even take over. Right now, no one knows if artificial intelligence is even possible.

Larry Page is quoted in this book saying that brains are smaller than computers. Carr also describes his views as brains are computers. Brains do have similar jobs as computers; they have to compute different problems, bring up past knowledge, and do multiple things at once. But my opinion is that we are very different from computers as well. We have emotions, friendships, and we need nourishment, and physical support to live. I must agree with Carr that many people “speak metaphorically” when referring to the brain. For example, “circuits, wiring, inputs, and programming” (172). However I do not get how he believes the brain is a computer, while he still has not achieved in backing up this claim by creating artificial intelligence.

                Another example to back up my first claim lies on page 175. Ray Kurzweil wrote an essay in which he argues “that once we’re able to scan a brain in sufficient detail to ‘ascertain the architecture of interneuronal connections in different regions,’ we’ll be able to ‘design simulated neural nets that will operate in a similar fashion.’” Today we are able to scan brains in pretty good detail. Maybe not good enough to recreate one, but even with more research done I doubt any one will be able to make a fake brain. Kurzweil finishes by stating “Although ‘we can’t yet build a brain like HAL’s, we can describe right now how we could do it’” (175). If they can describe how they can do it, why have they not been successful? Maybe someday creating a brain-like structure will not be out of the ordinary, but today it seems impossible.

Kim Fairweather