Arun-Kumar Tripathi (tripathi@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de)
Sun, 14 Feb 1999 22:02:42 +0100 (MET)
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 22:02:42 +0100 (MET) From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de> Subject: [RRE]IU Symposium Intelligent Machines: The End of Humanity? (fwd)
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Dear IFETS-Forum,
This is an excellent opportunity.....Thanks, :-)Arun Tripathi
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 19:20:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
To: Red Rock Eater News Service <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
Subject: [RRE]IU Symposium Intelligent Machines: The End of Humanity?
[I realize that most people, regretfully, won't be able to make it to
Bloomington for this event. I just found it striking that I had never
heard of another meeting with this seemingly obvious premise. I, by
the way, vote for "incoherent goulash".]
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Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:37:20 -0500
From: Rob Kling <kling@indiana.edu>
Subject: IU Symposium Intelligent Machines: The End of Humanity?
At IU, Saturday March 6.
See: http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/symposium99.html
As the year 2000 starts rushing headlong towards us, we all are
thinking about many changes. But how many of us are thinking along
the radical lines of several recent books, all of which -- all
written by highly reputed authorities -- argue that because of the
relentlessly accelerating march of technology, desktop-computer power
will, within just a few decades, far exceed that of the human brain,
and shortly thereafter will even exceed the collective thinking power
of all humanity. They further argue that such thinking entities
will merge with nanotechnology and virtual reality, and the products
that will emerge from this convergence will be intelligences of an
inconceivably powerful sort, leaving us humans behind in the dust.
All this is foreseen, at least by these experts, by the end
of the coming century. Clearly, if there is even the tiniest grain
of truth to what they claim, we should all be profoundly concerned
with these prospects. We need to evaluate the likelihood that what
they claim is true, the degree to which these forecasts are anathema
to us, and if a true calamity seems in store, then what sorts of
measures might be taken to forestall it before it is too late.
On theother hand, all of this might be seen as groundless poppycock,
as nothing more than what happens when silly science-fiction-addicted
minds splice sloppy and wishful thinking together into an incoherent
goulash. If this is so, however, then why do these books get
published by top-notch publishers, get reviewed by the nation's top
newspapers, get promoted by the editors of "Scientific American", and
so forth?
Are we dealing with the sublimest of hokum, or are we dealing
with something to be taken truly seriously? Whither humanity and
its ever more powerful, ever more flexible, ever more reflective
technology in the coming ten decades?
Welcome and Introduction
Douglas R. Hofstadter
College Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition
Panel Chair and Moderator
J. Michael Dunn
Oscar R. Ewing Professor of Philosophy and
Professor of Computer Science
Director, Office for Informatics
Panelists
Andrew Dillon
Associate Professor of Information Science
Thomas F. Gieryn
Professor of Sociology
Rob Kling
Professor of Information Science and Information Systems
Director, Center for Social Informatics
Michael A. McRobbie
Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Philosophy
Vice President for Information Technology and
Chief Information Officer at Indiana University
Gregory J. E. Rawlins
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Richard M. Shiffrin
Luther Dana Waterman Professor of Psychology
Director, Cognitive Science Program
Brian Cantwell Smith
Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science
Linda B. Smith
Chancellors' Professor of Psychology
John Woodcock
Associate Professor of English
----
Rob Kling
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/kling
The Information Society (journal) http://www.slis.indiana.edu/TIS
Center for Social Informatics http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI
Indiana University
10th & Jordan, Room 005C
Bloomington, IN 47405-1801 812-855-9763 // Fax: 855-6166
Read & contribute to the ....
Social Informatics Home Page --> http://www.slis.indiana.edu/SI
a resource about research, teaching, conferences & journals
Read:
"What is Social Informatics and Why Does it Matter?"
D-Lib Magazine January 1999 Volume 5 Number 1
at http://www.dlib.org:80/dlib/january99/kling/01kling.html
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