Cognitive Computers

Essay by lithiumfoxUniversity, Bachelor'sA, December 2006

download word file, 7 pages 0.0

In "Why Computers May Never Think like People" by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, both authors make a good analysis on why computers will not be able to think or act like humans. Programming is needed by a computer from a human to do a task, and because of this and explained later in this essay, the lack of programming to have its own intuitive thinking makes it not able to be human-like.

Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus begin their explanation on why computers may never think like humans by giving the reader a bit of background information. They quote the Marvin Minsky, and MIT Professor, "Today our robots are like toys. They do only the simple things they're programmed to do." (pg. 397). Through out this piece, Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus talk about the programming of a robot. To them, a robots ability to learn is hampered by their programming.

They feel even the most advanced programming of robots will not allow them to do the things human can do, they would be reasoning machines, looking at every possibility that may occur in a certain given situations, but their "intuitive intelligence" that humans have is a phenomenon that right now cannot be programmed into a robot. With a lot of money being spent from the Department of Defense, and 25 years of research, the ability to create an intelligent human like robot has not been successful.

Dreyfus suggests that human learning and understand of a particular task cannot be emulated by a programmed device. Dreyfus calls this type of knowledge "Know-How". With a computer, to teach it something, you need to come up with specific rules and boundaries so that it can reason when a situation occurs. According to Dreyfus, humans do not have these rules to control the way...