david wiles (rprtcard@aug.com)
Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:51:35 -0500
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 08:51:35 -0500 From: david wiles <rprtcard@aug.com> Subject: [RRE]IU Symposium Intelligent Machines: The End of Humanity? Say What?
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course we all hitch up our pants and look around suspiciously when
someone talks like this...
>,,,,,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.... Intelligent Machines: The End of Humanity?.....Center for
Social Informatics http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI.....
Still, this particular program begins with an introduction that may be
worth the wading through the rest of the verbiage pool.
Douglas R. Hofstadter
> College Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science
> Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition
Many of us have been avid readers of Professor Hofstadter through this long
running column in Scientific American (can you ever forget the tit-for-tat
strategy in two person games?, the Mind's Eye and, of course, the Golden
Braid weave of Godel, Esceher and Bach. While the end of humanity might be
just a bit much, it would be interesting to get a glimpse of what this
particular person might think of
(a) the roaring conversation about "learning styles" and M. David Merrill,
(b) the ifets global community to which this email and the symposium
advertisement are both a part (not to mention an increasing "make extra
money" etc clutter)of the barely filtered exchange and,
(c) the extent of overlay, if any, between "intelligent machine" envisioned
by Indiana University folks and the late l980's "smart machine" discussion
of Shoshana Zuboff. I am particularly interested in the transformation of
worker-manager relations and the implications of opaque "panoptican" but am
uncertain whether such questions fit in the normal AI versus CS
confrontations about "end" product of smart and intelligent humans...
(d) most important, whether this is a l999 electronic version of what could
lead to an "art of the long view: planning for the future in an uncertain
world" as envisioned by Peter Schwartz as this decade began. This was his
title for a small but excellent book published by Doubleday in l99l. For
those of you that have not read the Schwartz arguments for "scenarios
creation" coupled with "guide for strategic conversation" for a couple of
years I would suggest a revisit.
The ifets emails are quite an enriched and extensive soup...and the soup
seems to be getting thicker as l999 progresses. As the flow goes streaming
by the issue of possible/potential "ladles" to sample and digest
selectively becomes more important. There has got to be more than separate
folders filled up with summaries and the occasional really bright spark.
This is where the "intelligent machine" folks might be of real service to
the ifets audience because, well,
,,,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.
few decades? Haven't we had enough of replaying 20-30 years ago and
attempting blind mimic in our speculations of the coming "retrofit
refinements?" Certainly the recent experience in the USA
executive/legislative should make the golobal community wary of such improv
theater. I am just focused on the remaining ten months of "machine" until
the end of this year.
David Wiles
>Approved-By: Arun-Kumar Tripathi
<tripathi@AMADEUS.STATISTIK.UNI-DORTMUND.DE>
>Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 22:02:42 +0100
>Reply-To: IFETS Discussion List <IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>Sender: IFETS Discussion List <IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi <tripathi@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de>
>Subject: [RRE]IU Symposium Intelligent Machines: The End of Humanity?
(fwd)
>To: Multiple recipients of list IFETS-DISCUSS
> <IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>
>List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
>Details of current discussion: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/discuss.html
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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".]
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE).
>Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below.
>You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use
>the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions
>for (un)subscribing, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html
>or send a message to requests@lists.gseis.ucla.edu with Subject: info rre
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>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
>
>---------------------------------------------------------
>Forum website: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/
>Forum's contact person: kinshuk@ieee.org
>Info on Join/Leave List: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/maillist.html
>---------------------------------------------------------
>
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@ieee.org
Info on Join/Leave List: http://zeus.gmd.de/ifets/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Mon 15 Feb 1999 - 14:52:59 MET