Computers versus HumansCopyright ©2010 by T. Pavlidis | ||
| Background
material for a June 2010
OLLI
Worskshop on "Computers versus Humans" at Stony Brook University. No previous knowledge about computer technology or college level mathematics is expected from the participants. |
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An Overview and a Bit of HistoryThe notion of computers as competing with humans in terms of "intelligence" has been around for a long time and it becomes periodically the focus of public attention. In 1997 the victory of IBM's Deep Blue over Kasparov generated a fair amount of claims in the news media that, finally, computers were outsmarting humans. What the news media did not say was that the Deep Blue team included an international grandmaster, so that a highly skilled human chess player had been involved in the programming of Deep Blue. In 2001 the World Center attacks motivated the use of computer technology for counter-terrorism measures that in turn raised issues of privacy as well as questions about the effectiveness of the measures. In 2002 I was invited to give a talk on computers at a Stony Brook University emeriti faculty meeting and I opted to talk on the differences between human and machine intelligence. I chose the title "Computers versus Humans" because it captures two aspects of the subject: the comparison between the two types of intelligence and the effects of computers on human life [1]. While computer intelligence is nowhere near human intelligence, computers can have a big effect on human life because they can process huge amounts of data very fast. Also computers do not get bored or distracted! |
ContentsIntroduction: — Turing Test and CAPTCHA Chaos: — Handouts |
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LINKSNote: Links with a W in brackets, [W], refer to a Wikipedia article on the subject discussed. I have included such references only after making sure that the article is accurate in all major points discussed. First Posted: May 11, 2010 — Latest Update: June 19, 2010 | ||