I went to a library book sale this weekend and I found a very old book called “Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers,” which was published in I think 1975? I’ve been reading it kind of like how I would read a historical document, and it’s lowkey fascinating
There’s a whole paragraph that’s like “okay, find the keyboard. Don’t panic if it has more keys than a typewriter, that’s normal. Really, it’s fine. The extra keys don’t make things harder. It’s FINE”
Thought this section was particularly interesting:
Can the computer create something? At first glance it seems obvious that it can. Animated computer graphics, with their fluid transitions and whiplash perspectives, look strikingly new. And if one watches the machine doing animation work, there seem to be lengthy periods when the computer is acting “on its own.”
But if one observes these processes in more detail, it becomes clear that creation is not occurring within the machine. First of all, computer graphics are not unique. Computers have yet to generate anything that cannot be done by hand—and usually already has been done. Second, the apparent ability of the computer to “act on its own” is the outcome of thousands of hours of patient human effort to refine its instructions. The computer can manipulate a shape for us if we have already informed it what a shape is, what the rules for shape manipulation are, what this specific shape is, and so forth.
You can start an automobile engine and it will run by itself, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s being creative. It’s just running.
Somebody in 1975 had a better understanding of why artificial intelligence is not in any way “intelligence” than the majority of today’s intellectual minds.
This is fascinating. And accurate. I remember punching cards to run a computer as a kid. Then creating basic programs (in Basic, lol) Computers don’t know anything beyond yes/no. Or 1/0. We teach them or tell them what to do. Remember that when someone accuses your work of “being AI” because you use em-dashes or ellipses. Where do you think the bots learned that? Oh. From humans. Because it’s all they can do.
