首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Love of a Robot Can computers ever really be like us, and if not, why not? The similarities are obvious. We can both wor
The Love of a Robot Can computers ever really be like us, and if not, why not? The similarities are obvious. We can both wor
admin
2013-07-02
78
问题
The Love of a Robot
Can computers ever really be like us, and if not, why not? The similarities are obvious. We can both work out certain problems and apparently engage in dialogue, but the differences are striking, too. Marvin Minsky, one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, confesses that the more he tries to imitate the human brain, the more wonderful he finds it.
Computers can engage in dialogue and even simulate speech, but it will be a very long time indeed before they indulge in metaphor, jokes or slang — the things that human beings manage so effortlessly, and reprimand(谴责)their children for doing too much.
Yet the differences between human and computer "thinking" do not lie simply in the kinds of things that each is good at. The strategy is different. Computers are logical; they are tolerable to work with only because they do what they do so blindingly fast, processing billions of bits a second. The brains of humans, like those of all animals, are survival machines that use a variety of strategies, of which logic is only one, and not usually dominant. We think our way through life with roles of thumb, making guesses and taking chances based on past successes. Computers would find us intolerable, too, if they had opinions.
Besides, humans do not merely think and solve immediate problems. We have consciousness, whatever that is. We are emotional. Taken all in all, we have "mind". Nobody supposes that present-day computers possess consciousness or feeling, and, with neither, they surely cannot be "mindful".
Many artificial intelligence enthusiasts claim that the differences are only those of complexity. Consciousness is nothing more than the brain looking at itself, thinking about its own thinking. Computers could surely acquire such ability with suitable circuitry. It may not be a matter simply of making them more complex; perhaps there must be new computer architecture, with the different parts of the circuit interacting in ways not yet conceived. But time will sort this out. Already, the latest robots have e-motion built into them. Without emotion, they have no motivation at all and remain inactive. The human brain, in the end, is an electrical circuit. Why should a silicon-based circuit not imitate a carbonbased circuit, if that is what it is required to do?
The first great modern computer scientist, Alan Turing, said that, in principle, functional computers could be made out of anything. Turing is too clever to argue with and we must concede that computers can indeed be made of anything at all. But we know that computers, at least of the present day, do not do all that brains do. The human brain is not designed at all. It evolved by natural selection. Evolved systems have tremendous strengths. They encapsulate(压缩)solutions to all the problems that have been posed by the environment over many millions of years. Those problems are more various than any mere designer could consider; and the systems that evolve to cope with them are more complicated and subtle than any designer could conceive.
But evolved systems have their weaknesses, too. Natural selection is opportunist, but not creative. Each new generation is limited in materials and form by what was available to the generation before. It cannot simply seize what it needs from the surroundings, as a designer can. Hence the solutions to the problems posed by life often have a rough-and-ready quality. Solutions to old problems remain as a visible trace. Evolved systems cannot exhaustively be understood. After all, the major way to understand how living things work is by "reverse engineering": looking at what they do, and then inferring the problems they are solving. But the problems they are really solving may be hidden deep in their history. It’s not like reverse-engineering an enemy plane that has crash-landed in your back garden.
Computers, however, are designed and the process of designing has strengths and weaknesses of its own. The strength is in the flexibility: when designers make a mistake, they can go back to the drawing board, which natural selection can never do. The weakness is that the problems that need to be solved cannot be predicted completely in advance. In practice, consumers discover their weaknesses and find out what they can really do. Computers intended for one purpose often succeed, as animals do, by applying themselves to something completely different. Future computers will design themselves and, however much we may initially make them in our image, they will increasingly grow away from us.
Science does not progress in steady, logical steps, as conventionally conceived. Machines are innately impulsive and unpredictable, too. As soon as computer programs become even a little complex, it becomes theoretically impossible to predict all that they are capable of. The social relationships between unpredictable human beings and advanced, innately unpredictable robots are beyond guessing.
The less imaginative scientists assume that all outstanding questions can be answered within their existing paradigm, that more of the same researches will provide whatever answers are lacking. The great scientists, however, think beyond the paradigm. Historians tend to argue that Newton gave up experimental physics in the late 17th century because he ran out of ideas. Surely, though, he ran out of physics: he knew that his mechanics was not adequate, but he also knew that 17th-century data and maths could not lead to better understanding.
Today’s physicists, it has been suggested, may face the same problem: they have developed the idea of "superstrings", as the most fundamental of all fundamental entities in the universe, but they may need 23rd-century maths to understand them. This surely is the case also with the problems of mind and consciousness, and of whether computers can truly partake of them. We just don’t have the data or the means of thinking about what we do have. To understand the human brain we need a new paradigm. We should not assume that it will simply extend the present one, which involves neurology and pharmacology. It may well include new physics, or elements of eastern mysticism.
The next few centuries will surely bring us supertoys. They will also bring insights. Whether they bring the enlightenment we seek remains to be seen.
______think that all unanswered questions can be resolved within their paradigm.
选项
答案
The less imaginative scientists
解析
第一句说想象力稍逊的科学家认为所有悬而未决的问题用他们现有的范例就可以解答,只要进行更多类似的研究就将得到所有问题的答案。由空后的think可知该句缺主语,对应原文得出答案为The less imaginative scientists。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Wun7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Shewouldn’tminddoingitifshecould.B、Shewishedshehadn’thadthemeeting.C、Shedidn’twanttobecauseshewouldrathe
A、Theypaythesamewage.B、Theyinvolveworkingoutdoors.C、Theycanbesubstitutedforcollegestudents.D、They’repart-time.
A、Ithassomanyusefulwebsitestoclassify.B、ChattingontheNetreallytakesalotoftime.C、Usefulwebsitesarenotavaila
TheUnitedStatesDepartmentofEducationsaystherearemorethan2,400Americancollegesanduniversities.About100ofthese
TheUnitedStatesDepartmentofEducationsaystherearemorethan2,400Americancollegesanduniversities.About100ofthese
TheUnitedStatesDepartmentofEducationsaystherearemorethan2,400Americancollegesanduniversities.About100ofthese
A、Itwasnotreallyamagazine.B、Itfeaturedavarietyofarticlesandstories.C、Itwaspraisedbyreadersofpoetry.D、Itwas
A、Atarailwaystation.B、Atabuscenter.C、Inthecountryside.D、Inacoastaltown.B这道题要求考生注意细节,也就是事件发生的地点。
A、Whetherthesecuritycheckswerereallynecessary.B、Howtocopewiththehugecrowdsofvisitorstothemunicipalbuilding.C
Althoughinteriordesignhasexistedsincethebeginningofarchitecture,itsdevelopmentintoaspecializedfieldisreallyqui
随机试题
女性,70岁,右下唇皮肤肿物不断增大半年,直径约1.5cm大小,半月来破溃出血。病理检查肿瘤细胞异型性明显,角化珠形成,浸润肌肉组织。符合该患者诊断的是
下列因素中可增加对比度的因素是
细菌抵御吞噬细胞吞噬的结构是
确定软件著作权归属的基本原则是()。
公民刘某,住所地为A县,公民王某,住所地为B县,公民周某,住所地为C县。刘某以王某侵犯房屋的所有权为由向法院提起诉讼,周某则主张其才是房屋的真正主人。诉讼所涉及的房屋坐落于D县。那么,你认为哪个法院有管辖权?()
施工单位在工程投标报价中应当包含安全生产费用,一般不低于工程造价的(),且不得作为竞争性条件。
BHJ集团公司主要业务包括高新园区的开发建设、管理服务,高新技术成果转化和高科技企业经营管理。经过10多年的发展,目前形成了以电子元器件、新材料生产为主体的高新技术产业群。公司成立初期,分配形式单一,薪酬长期处于低水平状态,内部差距不明显,以人定岗的现象十
在整个地图学史上,有效使用地图意味着看懂绘制在平面上的一系列抽象符号,然后将这些符号与当地环境的各种三维特征联系起来,从而成功地确定自己的位置。但这并不是所有普通人都能够做到的,而且不久之前,地图本身也还是一种稀缺的人工制品,有些地图还属于军事上敏感的机密
透明牙本质(transparentdentin)
深化行政体制改革,要按照建立中国特色社会主义行政体制目标推进,具体要求是
最新回复
(
0
)