Furturism

Reading Kurzweil's article was like being in some strange science fiction movie. I had a hard time reading his article, because he sounded completely crazy. His ideas of sharing sense and entering virtual reality on the web was too much for my small mind to process. I felt like he was throwing crazy ideas out there for wow factor. I thought his goals were completely unrealistic and would take our society too far away from humanity. I don't believe virtual realities and man made organs are everyone's dream of utopia. In fact, some people would say it sounds like hell. There are people out there who find pleasure in the beauty of human life. This need to invent the next best thing is leading us further and further away from the wonders we have right beyond our commuters.

I suppose I side more with Joy, but I think his point could have been made in far fewer words. I am not against technology evolving, I even think a lot of it is really cool. But, Kurzweil's ideas take it to an extreme that I am not prepared to follow. His ideas completely discredit how wonderful natural life is. I would chose spending a day out in the fresh air, experiencing life first hand everyday over these virtual sense he speaks of. I rather sit, face to face with my best friend over a cup of over priced coffee at Starbucks, rather than meet in some sort of virtual room via the internet. Give me humanity any day.

Turing Test

The Turing Test seems like a great idea for computers, but not as good for humans. Being able to a fool a human into thinking that a computer is a real person is a huge advance in technology. I think it's safe to say that, that is an intelligent computer. One of the main concepts for commuters is to make them more humanlike, so that they can take over menial functions for us. If that is were technology is headed, then the Turing Test is perfect. This is the best way to test these new computers and find out if their doing a good job. If they can outsmart a human, then I believe they really are intelligent.

I'm not sure that this would be a good way to measure a human’s intelligence. With the way these programs are formatted, they are geared to make you believe that they are human, so why should we be considered less intelligent for believing this. It doesn't mean that we are less intelligent; it means that somewhere out there, there is an extremely intelligent person who has wrote this program. The computer has merely done its job. A computer doing its job is not an accurate way to measure human intelligence.