MAGAZINES & JOURNALS
A glance at the November 28 issue of "Rolling Stone":
Vernor Vinge, an associate professor of mathematical sciences
at San Diego State University and a science-fiction writer, can
envision a day in the not-so-distant future when human beings
will think of their computers not as machines but as living
organisms. Furthermore, within decades, those "organisms" will
be smarter than we are, Dr. Vinge tells Mark Dery, a "Rolling
Stone" writer and the author of a book on the future of culture
and cyberspace. Dr. Vinge says in the interview that he expects
the users o f large computer systems to think of their
computers as "animals or ecologies." "Computer viruses," he
says, "are a harbinger of that sort of thinking." Then, he
says, the artificial intelligence of computers will surpass
human intelligence, an event he calls "Singularity." Dr. Vinge
admits he has no idea what will happen then; that, he says, is
something no human can know. "Our understanding of what goes on
afterward can be no more accurate than a parakeet's reading of
the newspaper on the bottom of its cage," he says. "The
information is there, and the parakeet's owner may even be
willing to try to explain it, but the parakeet does not have
the mind to understand." (The magazine may be found at your
newsstand or library.)
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:wq
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Peter A. Freeman, Dean & Professor 1+404-894-4222
College of Computing, Georgia Tech http://www.cc.gatech.edu
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