Microsoft Word - ArtificialIntelligence.doc - ArtificialIntelligence.pdf
If the brain is essentially
a machine, a device that can capture information about the world
and process this information into action,
we may wonder if it is possible to construct an artificial brain,
an artificial intelligence, or AI.
After all, we can model the brain as having hardware--
that is the neurons and the synapses that connect them--
and software, even though we don't quite know what the software is.
We understand that this software must be expressed
in terms of the firing of neurons and the flow of biochemicals in the brain,
but don't know how it works.
That soon enough, perhaps by the year 2040 or so,
the processing power of computers will be so enormous
and the sophistication of our programs so amazing
that they will have an intelligence vastly superior to our own.
This is sometimes called the singularity, a point in history
when machines become more intelligent than humans.
Such a possibility brings out all kinds of nightmarish visions,
like the old Frankenstein story.
