Louisburg College - Oak Yearbook (Louisburg, NC)

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PralaguE A five-year-old at a private elementary school in Dallas was overheard saying of an- other student, Jonathan is al- ready four, and he can ' t do computers. In five years, every student at Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh) will be given a computer for personal and aca- demic use. These tidbits from Edward Fiske, Mew York Times News Service. What does it all mean? In another 15 years or so — around 1995, according to cur- rent trends — we will see the computer as an emergent form of life, competitive with man. — Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA ' s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The machine will begin to educate itself ... its powers will be incalculable ... If we are lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets. — Marvin Minsky, MIT computer scien- tist. Already, the debate rages. Jastrow states that computers are an artificial form of life be- cause they think, remember, learn by experience and re- spond to stimuli. Although still a very simple form of thinking, with the pace of technology, computer think could become sophisti- cated, raising awesome ethical questions with their potential for great harm as well as great good. Will it ever be desirable to create computers that are su- perior to the human mind? Computer scientists such as Jastrow and John McCarthy (Stanford Gniv.), believe such developments are not only de- sirable, but very possible. Mc- Carthy is only reluctant to pre- dict how soon artificial intelli- gence will surpass the human mind. Others, like Berkeley philos- opher Herbert Dreyfus, main- tain that human intelligence is far beyond the rules of behav- ior that can be programmed into a machine. Another critic is Joseph Wei- zenbaum, a leading computer scientist, who maintains that there are certain jobs comput- ers should never do, even if they were able to. Humanities professor Theo- dore Roszak, has written a nov- el called Bugs, foreshadowing a dim future heralded in by com- puter science. What will happen to the right to privacy? What about com- puter black-mails? What about the uncanny power conferred on those persons or agencies that control the computers? And finally, Roszak is alarmed that computers foster a distort- ed image of what a person is and what the human mind is. Heady stuff. As I write, I am reminded of my first computer encounter. My fascination with the machine — a TRS80 model 100 portable — and my deter- mination to make the machine work for me, to do my bidding, to make life easier. With each bit of mastery came a subtle feeling of power, and a desire for more control. I want to know more about com- puters. I want the scientists to include all of us, somehow, in this crucial debate over what is desirable. I want, above all, to see computers used to enhance our humanity and understand- ing. In the coming years we must define ourselves more than ever, less in some shadowy fu- ture, an artificial brain might have the power to do it for us. Marcia McCredie, Oak advisor