Cognovi’s AI Isn’t Destined to Conquer the World, Just Emotional Insight
Will we all be replaced by computers one day? Is that day coming soon?
These questions have haunted us for centuries, not only decades, ever since Descartes pondered the nature of machines. It became paramount in the mid-1900s when the full potential of artificial intelligence dawned on computer and cognitive scientists who intensely debated this possibility. Alan Turing came up with his Turing test, essentially a game evaluating how well a computer can exhibit intelligent language behavior that is indistinguishable from human. John Searle countered with his Chinese Room Argument that demonstrated Turing’s test was inadequate. Just because a computer can take input (like Chinese characters slipped under a room’s door), process them according to specific rules and instructions and generate appropriate responses (convincing a human that there’s a Chinese person in the room), the exercise does not prove that the computer actually understands Chinese.
The debate continues in the 21st century with both Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk voicing concern that we’ll soon be outmoded, and philosophers predicting a “technological singularity” when computer superintelligence advances out of our control with built-in self-regulation.
