THE FANTASTIC FOUR VS WEIZENBAUM & BROOKS - Issue 10

Joseph Weizenbaum creator of ELIZA grapples in his article over the public interpretation of his work. The fascination and the implication that his program could replace psychologist made questions arise on the topic of technologies place in society, the roles they play in us, the increasing comparing of man and machine, and the limitations he believes should exist in the role technology plays in human lives. Weizenbaum points out an interesting observation which he saw first hand with ELIZA, that we as individuals form strong ties to machines, as they are extensions of ourselves we seem to have no issue with "investing his [our] most private feelings in a computer". The implications this has with our own autonomy and the losing of that in an increasing technological world is a deep question. Weizenbaum clearly seems to believe that there should be limits to what computers ought to do, some things which remain solely in the realm of the human. It's clear why the idea of ELIZA of DOCTOR could replace psychologist would upset him so, to reduce that engaged human interaction to the likeness of a processor would be very troubling to him indeed.

In Rodney Brooks' essay "The Seven Deadly Sins of Predicting the Future of AI" we have a very amusing an interesting reading. Brook's discusses the misconceptions, false predictions, and fallacies that plague the field of technology and robotics. First he lays out four general topic areas of prediction: Artificial General Intelligence, The singularity (praise unto our robot overlords), Misaligned values, & Killer robots. Then he breaks down the seven mistakes: Over and Under Estimating, Imagining Magic, Performance VS Competence, Suitcase Words, Exponentials (sorry singularity 😢), Hollywood Scenarios, and finally Speed of Deployment. The breath and width take to exploring and explaining each of these is both entertaining and interesting to read, and certainly touches on a lot of conceptions we've held at one point or another in our lives (but certainly not since starting CART 210).