Future Tense: Chapters 1–4

We’re also not talking about the kinds of robots you often see in factories, the kind blamed for job loss through automation.

Their software, guided by algorithms that let it learn from you and others, can influence your behavior and your feelings.

AI is already pervasive.

Fully autonomous cars aren’t widely available yet, but ones that partner with human beings are.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle observed this more than 2,300 years ago: “There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each instrument could do its own work, at the word of command or by intelligent anticipation.”

All of this requires thinking and the formulation of theories about the rules of the world.

Using Aristotelian logic, you make conclusions using syllogisms.

These human computers were usually women, because the work was not prestigious and the people who did it could be paid less.

In 1822, Babbage designed a model for a large, crank-operated device with gears, ratchets, and rods, which he called a Difference Engine.

The redundancy helps ensure our messages get through.

In the summer of 1956, they gathered to study a variety of aspects of AI, including how a computer could be programmed to use a language, how to arrange neurons to form concepts, how to get a computer to improve itself, and even how to explore the role of randomness that enlivens creative thinking (as opposed to mere competent thinking, which is more formulaic).

But it wasn’t all human foibles holding AI back.

In 1982, a Taiwanese student arrived at Carnegie Mellon with plans to build a chess-playing computer for his PhD dissertation.

For some observers, it wasn’t so much a chess match as a portent for the future of human beings versus machines.

Facing an opponent that felt cold, calculating, and relentless proved too much—even for the best human opponent in the world.