I like to re-run this piece now and then, because so many people seem to think computers will lead them to the promised land or something. They seem to forget that these are inanimate objects–things created by human hands.
Does it stand to reason nincompoops and sinners can create perfection? Paradise? That we don’t need God… because we’ve got Neil DeGrasse Tyson?
Yeahbut, yeahbut! They’ve got chess computers that are way better than chess masters! *Sigh* It’s only a simulation, dude. The super chess computers “know” only what human chess experts have programmed them to know. But in terms of consciousness, they don’t knoiw anything at all.