2018-01-21 Back in the past: fear of computers
I'm currently watching videos made by students about projects on machine learning. As their video is on youtube, the website decided to recommend the following video, news back from 1981 with an interview of Steve Jobs who was 26 at this time.
Jobs claimed he was able to reach one computer in every 1000 families and was confident enough he could reach 1 out of 10 in the next five years. The journalist introduced the short story which preceeds the interview by asking : "Should we fear computers?" Jobs replied by saying that a computer is just a tool, like a bicycle is, which emphasizes our inner talents.
We now wonder whether we should fear artificial intelligence. It seems we do not fear computers anymore. But the first five minutes are quite interesting in a way that it shows computers had invaded the society was already addicted to them. Planes, credit cards... so many things were already using them. The journalist questions Jobs about the danger of giving so much data about ourselves to these machine. Could it become a danger to our freedom? Computers could be replaced by artifical intelligence, the story could have been shown today on TV but the final question would not change: should we be giving away so much data? One answer from Jobs: there is no way back and the best way is not to reject computers but to learn how to use them to finally understand what danger we are talking about.
To conclude, I doubt any TV would display such a long sequence on any subject now. I fear that we have less and less wisdom and patience to answer the original question "Should we fear computers?".
|
Xavier Dupré
|
