gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman) (04/01/89)
In a footnote to my remark about the computer-user relationship, Herman Rubin (l.cc.purdue.EDU!cik) has written to me: > > It's important to remember that the user is part of the loop. If a > > computer has no users, is it a computer? > > I disagree. A computer is a device which "mechanically" performs certain > types of symbol manipulation. Possibly "mechanically" should be completely > deleted. If an electronic glitch caused a computer to perform certain > operations, and then erase the results of those actions, it would still > be computing, and would still be a computer. This will remind many of the scholastics' paradox about the tree that falls with nobody to hear. 500 years ago print media pushed us toward an objective model of reality; now electronic media are pushing us toward an interactive model. The implications for A.I. are obvious if you use an interactive model. What does a man do when there's nobody around to talk to him? What does a computer program do when there's nobody around to talk to it? To *use* an artificial intelligence as an interlocutor requires you to sustain the same kind of illusion as when you "listen" to Michael Jackson on the stereo. -:- One day SIMON was walking to the conference hall when he met WEIZENBAUM, who said: "I have a problem for you to solve." SIMON replied, "Tell me more about your problem," and walked on. --A. I. Koans -- Col. G. L. Sicherman gls@odyssey.att.COM