Intelligent machines

The evolution of artificial intelligence is now proceeding so rapidly that by the end of the century cheap computers no larger than portable type-writers will exist that will be able to solve almost any problem faster and more efficiently than we can.

“Intelligence” in a machine, as in a human, is best defined as the ability to solve complex problems swiftly. This may involve medical diagnosis and prescriptions, resolving legal matters or playing war games: in other words advising governments whether or not to go to war.

While computers have already enhanced the deadlines of weapons, the prospect for the future is that they will play the more beneficial role of preventing wars. If asked to assess the chances of victory, the computer will analyze facts quite differently from the life-long military expert with his enthusiasm and ambitions. The computer coolly appraises the chances of success before the conflict begins, may well advise that the fight is unwinnable or that chances of victory are unacceptably low and needless disaster can be avoided.

At what point do we decide that their mental capacity is approaching the human level? This question will be answered by an ingenious trick known Alan Turing. He proposed a simple test. A person would sit alone in a room talking by teleprinter with two other beings elsewhere, one of them human and the other a computer. When after substantial conversation he no longer knew which was which, the computer would have passed the Turing Test, and arguably would have attained human intelligence.

No machine today comes near to passing the Turing Test. Professor Isaac Asimov may have solved the problem with a masterpiece of mathematical logic. He proposes that all intelligent machines should have the following three “Laws” programmed into them as instincts:

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except when such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence so long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

It sounds foolproof, but will it work? Pessimists will still pay attention to the ominous words of Arthur Clarke: “The first invention of a super-intelligent machine will be the last invention mankind will be allowed to make”.

Ex.1. Answer the questions.

1. How can the “intelligence” of a computer be defined best?
2. What are the possible uses of a computer?
3. What does the Turing Test consists of?
4. Are you enthusiastic or skeptical about the planet “run by the computers”?

Ex.2. Discuss the questions.

1. People can’t manage without computers.

1. The number of computers in the world is constantly growing.
2. A number of problems have already been solved by computers.