18 May 2009

AI vs HI:Why grey matter still wins

Sure, pretty much everyone who's legitimately part of the 21st century is nuts about smart gadgets. But to the lazy-brains out there who believe they can let their gizmos do the thinking for them, get your heads together--being a moron will never be in fashion! Besides, to think that a smart chip can ever replace your noggin is just plain naive. Here's why:





  1. Until somebody invents lithium-ion-adrenaline batteries, gadgets will always conk out way sooner than a strong-willed human.
  1. In “I Robot”, a droid saved Del Spooner and left a child to drown because it calculated that the dude had a better chance of survival than the kid. Hey, it could happen to you!
  1. In your experience, how many times has clicking “Help” actually helped? (see number 4 for a follow-up argument).
  1. Despite leaps-and-bounds advances in Artificial Intelligence, have you ever heard of a cybernetic call center agent?
  1. Translate the sentence, “Pang-ilang presidente ng Pilipinas si GMA?” using the most sophisticated translation software, and see what that gets you.
  1. When push comes to shove, beating the crap out of a human has a slim chance of getting him to work. Not so with computers.
  1. With twisted logic and a little intimidation, a human adult can reason with a 3-year-old brat. Good luck doing that with a computer.
  1. For all their advanced intelligence, the Autobots needed a loser named Sam Witwicky to find the Allspark.
  1. Retro came and went, and nobody ever tried to do a remake of “Mr. Roboto”—not successfully, anyway. 
  2. Who else but a human would design computer logic that’s so profound as to say, “to shut down, click START”?

No comments: