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From: jgm@tahoe.doorknob (Jonathan Monsarrat)
Subject: Re: [comp.ai] Computers beat Checkers AND Chess champions
In-Reply-To: Leslie Pack Kaelbling's message of Fri, 2 Sep 1994 09:28:16 -0400
Message-ID: <JGM.94Sep2101352@tahoe.doorknob>
Sender: news@cs.brown.edu
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
References: <199409021328.JAA02535@heloise>
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 1994 14:13:52 GMT
Lines: 30

Hi!

> Are these the first pebbles in an avalanche that will bury human
> expertise in many areas?   I think so: they signal that a certain
> threshold in machine power has been crossed.

A sci-fi book by Vernor Vinge, the prequel to "Marooned in Realtime",
discusses the idea that in the future humans will compete in chess
games, but use computers to facilitate their thinking. The humans have
a link to their computers that allows them to control them with brainwaves.

Brain waves are a quite real concept in interface, which is being
explored by the US Air Force currently, I'm told.

But even without the fancy interface, humans could accept computers
instead of competing with them. The humans would "mastermind" the
chess game, with the computer doing the computational grunt work.

Nobody cares that computers can add and subtract faster than humans.
We humans use adding computers to go further.

Why not the same for other "grunt" tasks?

I won't start mourning until computers can write books and love better
than humans. Though even that would let us "go further", I suppose... :)

-Jon
%! Jon Monsarrat     jgm@cs.brown.edu     moderator, comp.sources.postscript %!
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