I read this article the other day in Time Magazine. Still not sure what I think, so I thought I would get your opinion. The author is basically saying that it’s inevitable for computers to eventually take over civilization. Here’s a portion of what he had to say:
Computers are getting faster. Everybody knows that. Also, computers are getting faster faster — that is, the rate at which they’re getting faster is increasing.
True? True.
So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness — not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.
If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there’s no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators
What do you think? Could computers be the end of human civilization?
A computer genius I am not. A brilliant theologian I am not. However, my simple thought here is that God said…
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
I think we got this. However, I am seriously considering throwing my Mac and iPhone out as I’m quite sure they have already both blown by me in intelligence and I don’t like the way they’ve been looking at me while I sleep.
Maybe WE are the ‘SUBDUED’ Creepy thought
I think people will begin to reject technology. Like so many things, I think we tend to allow the things we posses to posses us.
Good word.
I really don’t think it is within our power to create sentience.
if computers are trained to be servants, i think we’re cool, pete! like i’m tired of feeding myself cereal every morning. i’d want a robot to do that for me. who has all that time? spoon to bowl. spoon to mouth. repeat like 250 times (which would actually be a really big bowl of cereal). remember office space? the scene where they destroy the printer? i have my sledgehammer ready. [i'm probably on their hitlist now...and, unsure about whether computers will understand humor when they read this, i'd like to say explicitly...i'm joking. winky face. dot com.]
You crack me up. Miss you man.
The biggest question is…can computers write their own code?
Ye and no, most already do this in so many words.
But if they could use deductive coding (our form of conductive reasoning) then it could be possible that it would get all terminator up in this world, but in all reality the biggest thing that scares me is the reliance on computers in a global scale and cyber war.
But very interesting quotes there
Interesting post Pete. We are quite a ways out before Singularity occurs. Ray Kurzweil predicts in 35 years we will be there. Not quite.
I agree with you, Pete. I don’t think God put us here to let us get taken over by an iMac.
That said, the thought is creepy. The article sounds kind of like a George Orwell novel with robots.
I definitely think we rely way to much on technology, (even mcdonalds now uses a machine to automatically poor fountain drinks) it’s kind of crazy when you think about the dependency we have on computers. I think it has made us take life at too fast of a pace and it wouldn’t hurt to slow down. As far as them taking over….I say if they do we just call arnold schwarzenegger and let him handle the situation
Isaac Asimov wrote a great book about this over half a century ago. I, Robot. Classic. (Nothing like the movie with Will Smith though. The only part of the book they used in that movie was the title.)
I think we need both, Human reality & computer tech. Cuz’ there’s nothing like the real thing!
Ok, Pete I got this one.
First I don’t believe current computer design allows for the possibility of creating a “self aware” computer.
Secondly, even if I am wrong on my first theory we will run out of the raw materials, oil, coal et cetera to create a sufficent electrical supply to keep the computers running on a consistent enough basis for them to take over the world.
I think we need to be looking more to folks like the Amish on how to survive than Bill Gates.
(Conspiracy theorist – OUT!)
Make that two votes for Amish wisdom! As a non-tv watching, non cell phone owning North American, I feel one third Amish already!
First, key word “current”.
Second, Geothermal Energy or Magnetic Generation Generators.
Thirdly, Amish all the way 100%.
Computers are already beating our best at Jeopardy.
Prepare for the rise of the machines!
First…need I remind you all about the movie “I.Robot”? I could stop there, I mean really…
But what I really want to point out is the truth concerning computers outsmarting us someday. You can be assured that any time we are given a particular idea concerning things like ‘COMPUTERS GETTING FASTER; FASTER’ it is a guarantee that somewhere someone is already working with a computer that thinks on its own, OH WAIT… IF YOU HAVE A ‘DROID’ PHONE, or any phone with “DROID’ technology, you are holding in your hand the beginning of artificial intelligence. This technology is DESIGNED to LEARN YOU and your preferences and habits… I REST MY CASE. lol
I hesitate to weigh in here, because I know a lot of this is tongue in cheek. However, I am a dualist – human beings are more than synapses firing in a carbon based brain. We are both physical and spiritual, both brains and souls. Computers may increase in their ability to compute logic to the point where they closely resemble human activities, decisions, intelligence, etc, but there is nothing happening on another plane (namely a spiritual one) when a robot wins on Jeopardy. At the risk of sounding even more geeky, I will stop there.
Really…………computers taking over hahaha
Ah, yes. Singularity. See also Alvin Toffler’s ideas of our future to come in “waves.” Not sure I buy everything in it, but it is very interesting and influential in the futurist circles.
Having worked on some pretty gee-wiz, hush don’t tell sort of things in the Navy, I know we the people often only get the crumbs of technology. It’s really scary what they have out there that we don’t know about… and how long they’ve had it… and who is in control of it.
I do not share the optimism of the futurists concerning such developments, either in their beneficence or in their certainty of development. I’m not a tech-hating Luddite, but it is a world controlled by elites and dominions and the rulers of the air, and the common folk often end up enslaved by such developments (“Oh, we gotta get back for American Idol! Sorry, Grandma.”) more than being enriched. More porn hits or educational hits on the internet all told?
Not to mention the occupational discrimination that can often occur. “Oh, sorry sir. In order to work here you have to have at least a class III implant to interface our system.”
It doesn’t have to develop into AI to be able to control man, however—just a fallen man somewhere writing the source code telling it to be dastardly. What sort of signs will come from technology to fool even the elect?
It could even be something quite innocent. As anyone in networking or programming can tell you, a single mistake can cause a loop or jump in logic that can crash entire systems. The law of unintended consequences gets more disastrous the more interconnected we are. See the old movie “Failsafe.”
As to whether God will allow it, who knows the future or the mind of God. Just keep in mind Revelations 10:4…
“And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: but I heard the voice from heaven, saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders have spoken, and write them not.”
Who knows what are in those seven thunders? Maybe they sound all synth-like. Another very interesting question concerning tech and spirit, will synthetic biological men have souls? Not just clones, which still come from Adam in some form. But what if the mad scientist is actually able to make life from non-life, breaking the law of biogenesis? There are some very good questions for Christians about the future.
Very harsh in concerns of the adult content, but the new Battlestar Galactica (my new favorite series) had some very interesting ideas concerning artificial intelligence and spirituality.
Just makes me want to sing “In the year 2525…”
Ooops. What was the question? Oh, yeah. Yes. I think computers can end human civilization either by ending us or making our civilization for us. Google, anyone? I’m sure it would be very logical, however.
Never set your since or reality on a light switch!!!
Never!!!
So many blindly have and will…
Pete,
Good post. I’m new here and I’m impressed by some of the comments. Not by any means an expert in the computer sciences but I’ve got an innate ability to sense my fellow man’s struggle. I’ve witnessed computers being both a help and a threat through the user. A threat by those sick persons that wish to take our identity, infect our computers and overdose us with junk. The good side is when you’re elderly, homebound and isolated; the internet is their window to the world. Keeping this in mind, I believe God gave man the gift to create the computer. Like all gifts, He has a plan and we need to obey. I also believe that He expects us to use computers, phones, etc. much the same way He expects us to live our lives; holy, loving, compassionate and exhibiting the example scripture tells us to be. I fear for our young people whose world revolves around texting and social networking. I feel they have lost the ability for socialization and are going deeper from the truth.
Hah! No way! I remember when we were predicting that computers would eliminate all paperwork, and companies would be paper-free. Now0, there are companies, and agencies, where there was indeed a lot of paper and storage space saved. But mostly, computers just made it faster to print lots of paper, and we ended up with more than ever.
Not to mention that if you let your software run and run and run, it gradually drops bits and picks bits, but it doesn’t get better. It degrades and finally stops running.
(Maybe a lesson there for the natural-selection people too?)
I do not think computers could end human civilization. I sincerely believe this is merely putting more faith (aka: fear) in the world rather than what God says about us – as you clearly point out in scripture.
Articles like this only play on the mountains of sci-fi fiction novels, comics and movies that have been made for years now…which is all rooted in some kind of fear the one day we will be overtaken by computers (like noted in The Matrix).
There’s no way that a computer takeover would be possible, even though the thought of it is quite intriguing but because God is the creator of heaven and earth, no invention could ever succeed to that momentum!!
Part of the reason that America is finding it difficult to create jobs is that jobs once held by humans who were valued for their efforts are being lost to more efficient machines. A much more intelligent person than I has written extensively about this and what might happen in the future. You can read his essay entitled “Robotic Nation” at: http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm