Book description
For the first time in history, we are interacting with computers so
sophisticated that we think they're human beings. This is a remarkable
feat of human ingenuity, but what does it say about our humanity? Are
we really no better at being human than the machines we've created?
By mimicking our behaviour and conversation, computers have recently
come within a single vote of passing the Turing Test, the widely
accepted threshold at which a machine can be said to be 'thinking' or
'intelligent'. In this witty, wide-ranging and inspiring
investigation, Brian Christian takes the recent and breathtaking
advances in artificial intelligence as the opportunity to rethink what
it means to be human, and what it means to be intelligent, in the 21st century.
Competing head-to-head with the world's leading AI programmes at the
annual Turing Test competition, he uses their astonishing achievements
as well as their equally fascinating failings to reveal our most human
abilities: to learn, to communicate, to intuit and to understand. And
in an age when computers may be steering us away from these
activities, he shows us how to become the most human humans that we
can be.
Drawing on science, philosophy, literature and the arts, and
touching on aspects of life as diverse as language, work, school,
chess, speed-dating, art, video games, psychiatry and the law, The
Most Human Human shows that that far from being a threat to our
humanity, computers provide a better means than ever before of
understanding what it is.
Brian Christian was born in 1984. He holds a dual degree from
Brown University in computer science and philosophy, and an MFA in
poetry. His work has appeared in both literary and scientific
journals. In 2009, he competed with the world's leading artificial
intelligence software at the international Turing Test competition,
where he was awarded the prize for 'The Most Human Human'. This is his
first book.
In it, you will discover:
Why computers can fly planes but can't ride bicycles
How Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov but why it didn't count
What arguments have in common with amnesia
Why speaking to a machine is like a bad date
What life is all about and how to live it better...
