Science, technology and the arts

65 The computer scientist Professor Joseph Weizenbaum to the theme of computers. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Here are some extracts from an article by Professor Weizenbaum, they were taken from the computer magazine CHIP, issue number 9/1988. Professor Weizenbaum lectures at the Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ “Whatever the computer may do, in the final analysis it is man who must interpret the accruing chain of bits. Whatever the programs and the data coming from the computer mean has nothing to do with the computer itself, it is a human affair. Even if we had a system of 64 billion computers, all working together to produce some kind of intelligence, we could still not allege that we had a model of human intelligence at our disposal that would enable us to explain all of its aspects. I believe that this statement is very important. We produce models in order to gain scientific knowledge and we can ask what such a model can tell us and what not. But the second question is much more important. The quantity of facts a randomly selected model does not deliver is infinitely more substantial . The same applies to a computer model of the human intelligence: Almost everything is omitted, even though one tries to include as much a possible. Sentient man for instance has his own history, a mother brought him into this world and it is his duty to separate from his mother physically and also emotionally. This whole process endowed the individual with experiences that do make a contribution to his thought processes. This is not incorporated into this model. One could now say: “Well, one could also incorporate this in the model.” This leads to the assertion that all aspects of human life can be encoded in a finite chain of bits, that is to say, computable. This is nonsense! It would mean that everything can be said in a specific way, that there is nothing that we cannot say. But I assert that all of us know a lot of things we cannot say. The poet Ionesco once wrote: “Everything can be expressed in words except the living TRUTH.” I believe that’s true. This is where we clearly see the limits of artificial intelligence and not in technology. It is quite possible that machines can become intelligent in a certain sense, but this is an intelligence that has to be completely different, non-human as it were, because we cannot produce a model of a human being of meaningful substance. “ Free will (Transmission from the SPHERES of LIGHT) Billions of incarnated souls live on this Earth and billions of souls carry the divine SPARK within. Only relatively few souls have covered this SPARK with a heap of ash. Nevertheless billions of people allow themselves to be mislead, enslaved and controlled by these few negative individuals.