The Computational Universe

When the course began just over three months ago, I think I overestimated the current computational abilities in Artificial intelligence (AI). I thought that we were very close to having machines that were indistinguishable from humans, and that in the near future, we would interact with life-like machines on an everyday basis and not even be able to tell the difference. However, when this course began, I still thought that machines and humans had fundamental differences and that machines would never be capable of “thinking.”

At this point in the course, after having taken the Touring Test, I realize that as far as we know right now, we cannot create machines that will respond in an indistinguishable manner from humans. However I still am confident in my original view, which relates to that of Searle, that machines are not capable of thinking. Even if machines were able to pass the Touring Test, and could respond in a conversation with humans in a human-like way, the machines are still running on man-made programs. Searle’s Chinese Room argument was perhaps the greatest example for me as to why machines cannot think. Even if machines could carry out human operations such as conversations, they would not be understanding meaning, but would rather only be spitting out symbols in an arranged order. As Searle puts it, machines would be able to understand syntax but not semantics–they could correctly place the language symbols in order so that it would make sense to a human, but they would have no understanding of the meaning of what they had just done.

Rodney Brooks argues conversely that humans are really no different from machines, and in fact could be considered machines themselves. Both are made up of the same molecules that act based on a specific set of rules. Therefore if there is no difference between humans and machines, then machines should be able to think just as the human brain does. I however disagree with Brooks that machines and humans are not fundamentally different, as I think humans, being able to reproduce, or feel pain, or just be alive makes them different from any man-made machine.

Perhaps I could be wrong however, and machines actually are similar to humans in their capabilities for thinking and consciousness.  What is more probably, as Brooks suggests about many other philosophers, is that I am afraid to think that computers could be concious.

Last week we were given the choice of attending one of several different events that directly related to the material we have been studying in COS 116.  When I saw that one of the speakers was Sir Tim Brenners Lee, the founder of the world wide web, I immediately knew that it was his even that I wanted to attend. So accordingly, last Wednesday night I ushered into a packed McCosh Hall to hear Mr. Brenners Lee speak about the history of the web and his ideas for the future related to the internet. A large part of what Mr. Brenners Lee spoke about went a little bit over my head. I am not well versed enough in technological language to know exactly what he was talking about. I could understand certain things, such as his distinctions between URIs and URLs, and the importance that URIs serve, allowing us to immediately access the same information as another, thousands of miles away. However, for the most part, I was struggling to stay with what he was saying.

 Even though Mr. Brenners Lee was speaking in a language I could only half understand, I was still fascinated by listening to him speak. The innovations of Mr. Brenners Lee advanced society in an unprecedented way.  Hearing him talk is comparable to hearing someone like Thomas Edison speak, who changed the world in such a profound way. I enjoyed hearing about Mr. Brenners Lee’s ideas for the future of the web, including the semantic web. His comments about one’s posting of information on the web, and then seeing it used by another for a completely differnet purpose or objective were quite on point. I would love to see my information or online postings utilized by another in an entirely novel way. I also thought his ideas about responsibility in using of the web were very accurate. I hope to follow up on his talk and learn more about his future ideas relating to the world wide web.

I first learned about Alan Touring in an engineering class I took last semester. We learned how Touring’s contributions, coupled with those from Von Neumann, led to the foundation of modern computers and computer programs. When I learned however,  how simple these Touring Post-Programs really are, and yet how much they can accomplish, I was truly astounded. Composed very simply of 0s and 1s, these programs are capable of literally taking and running pretty much any other program. The idea is so simple, yet it can have so many complex implications. 

When we ran examples of Touring Post programs in class they seemed so simple, yet they changed my way completely of thinking about computers. They use a completely binary system (0s and 1s) and yet can run anything. The examples of this program really helped me to see how words and indeed the world can be expressed through simple combinations of numbers containing just 0s and 1s. The Touring Post Program really was a stepping stone toward leading us into a more computational universe. Now that nearly everything can be expressed through combinations of numbers, we have enterred an entirely new age of binary systems and have made breakthroughs in the computational world from which we will never look back.

While the scribbler doesn’t necessarily seem like all that much when you first look at it, the capabilities of the robot are astounding. For example, its ability to recognize objects from a distance and then respond by altering it course without humans controlling it along every step is very impressive. On one of the homework assignments, we were asked to estimate the number of calculations we had done in our entire lifetime. Though everyone’s guesses varied (mine was about 200,000), the unbelievable fact was that the scribbler could do all of those calculations in less than a second! Considering such a capability, and then considering how much farther robots are now than the scribbler makes me wonder what the limit is for robot capabilities. My favorite part of the scribbler is the functions that allow the robot to play sounds in response to certain stimulus. For example as we had to demonstrate, the scribbler could be used as an alarm system that would sound off whenever light was present. I have enjoyed working with the robot and I hope to do even more interesting programming in the future.

Today’s robots are of course even farther along than the scribbler. Robots today can be programmed to act in response to thousands of different situations without human control along the way. Deep Blue for example, was able to beat Kasparov, the world chess champion, because it could react to hundreds and hundreds of original moves on the chess board. Some theorists have argued that robots will be indistinguishable from humans in the coming years. Though the speed of robot calculations and movements is impeccable, the robot capabiliities are still nowhere near that of the human brain. However, robots and autonomous machinery are becomming an ever more present part of our daily life (such as running household machinery or even operating within our cars), and will most surely continue to play a bigger role in society in years to come.

My name is Jeff and I am a Freshman here at Princeton. I’m still a bit unsure as to what I want to major in, although at this point I think I’m leaning towards economics with a certificate in finance. Outside of academics, I play on the varsity tennis team, which takes up most of my free time. Though I really like all the guys on the team and love to compete, it has been fairly difficult trying to balance sports and a social life while still getting all my work done.

I’m originally from Bethesda Maryland, which is a town less than 2 miles outside of Washington D.C. Growing up in the D.C. region was great because there is so much history right at your fingertips. For example during the 2000 Presidential election my middle school class took a field trip to the Supreme Court to watch the proceedings of Bush v. Gore. The problem is, because I’m are so close to all the attractions that D.C. has to offer, I often take them for granted, don’t take full advantage of whats around me. Still though, I love living here in Princeton, and I hope to take full advantage of everything the school has to offer.

I am interested in this class because my knowledge of computers is somewhat limited. I want very much to get a well-rounded education here and especially take things that I am either not good at or wouldn’t normally get a chance to study. So far I have taken several courses in economics and politics, and I want to make sure that I don’t become one-dimentional in what I learn about. The first two lectures about how robots work and the theories behind autonomous control made me even more interested in learning what this class has to offer. In the future, robots I’m sure will be playing a larger and larger part in society, and learning about how they function will become even more important.

In general, I am more accustomed to using Windows than anything else. The first computers my family bought were all Macintoshes. Since then, I have found windows to be easier to be more efficient and more user-friendly. However, I recognize that Macintoshes do have several great features including their video-making capabilities.

Update 5pm 2/11/06…I changed this post to include what kind of computers I usually use and what I like about different types of computers.