http://www.schoolofthinking.org/2009/the-most-powerful-supercomputer-in-the-world-is/ Escape - Search - Think Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:42:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 http://www.schoolofthinking.org/2009/the-most-powerful-supercomputer-in-the-world-is/#comment-66984 John deChadenedes Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:33:58 +0000 http://www.schoolofthinking.org/?p=1208#comment-66984 What's most striking about the original article about incredibly fast computers is not the speed of the computers themselves. It's that the article doesn't mention or even hint at what this power and speed is going to be useful for! We've recently witnessed the global collapse of a financial system developed and managed by some of the brightest people in the world using the best computers available to them. They came off looking both stupid and greedy, or perhaps "stupid because greedy". I don't see any reason to think that faster computers will make people behave more intelligently since those computers will only be solving problems set them by people. History suggests these problems will mostly be about making money and waging war, possibly both at once. It's not likely that a computer would tell its operators that a preoccupation with making money doesn't make for a good life and that continuing to resolve problems using violence and destruction is not the road to prosperity and peace. From my perspective, then, the answer to the question, "When will computers be smarter than us" is "Never". But it's not the right question. We should be asking, "When will we be smarter than we are now?" What’s most striking about the original article about incredibly fast computers is not the speed of the computers themselves. It’s that the article doesn’t mention or even hint at what this power and speed is going to be useful for! We’ve recently witnessed the global collapse of a financial system developed and managed by some of the brightest people in the world using the best computers available to them. They came off looking both stupid and greedy, or perhaps “stupid because greedy”. I don’t see any reason to think that faster computers will make people behave more intelligently since those computers will only be solving problems set them by people. History suggests these problems will mostly be about making money and waging war, possibly both at once. It’s not likely that a computer would tell its operators that a preoccupation with making money doesn’t make for a good life and that continuing to resolve problems using violence and destruction is not the road to prosperity and peace. From my perspective, then, the answer to the question, “When will computers be smarter than us” is “Never”. But it’s not the right question. We should be asking, “When will we be smarter than we are now?”

]]>