dstebbins
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I found this question taking a political test once. Who agrees with me when I say this is total BS?
For the purposes of this thread, I'm going to stretch the definition of "think" a little. Bite for me.
There is one reason a computer cannot write a novel at all, much less a good one. That reason is the one difference between man and robot. That difference is this: A computer cannot think.
Now wait. A computer does not think. A computer computes (remember I'm stretching the definition a bit). A computer does exactly what it's told to do, not taking into account anything but numbers. When we were kids and we were given math problems in school, the teacher called it thinking, but it was actually computing. Thinking involves logic, outside-the-box, and emotion. That's why we still have humans serving on juries instead of a computer that weighs the evidence and gives a verdict based on probability rather than moral. We want someone trying our crimes who can think.
You're next response is probably going to be that we can program a computer to come up with the plot twists that make a good novel. That is true. A computer can do anything that it is programed to do. However, what idiot on the planet is going to make a computer that can think instead of just compute? After all the novels of robots destroying the world, turning against their creators because their CPUs allow them to learn, and as such they learn to revolt? Who on God's green earth is going to make a computer that smart? They can program the computer to do rigid tasks and program it to learn within their programming, but who would make a computer who could actually think?
My conclusion is this: A computer will never write the best novel ever written because we, as humans, know better than to give a computer the power of thought.
For the purposes of this thread, I'm going to stretch the definition of "think" a little. Bite for me.
There is one reason a computer cannot write a novel at all, much less a good one. That reason is the one difference between man and robot. That difference is this: A computer cannot think.
Now wait. A computer does not think. A computer computes (remember I'm stretching the definition a bit). A computer does exactly what it's told to do, not taking into account anything but numbers. When we were kids and we were given math problems in school, the teacher called it thinking, but it was actually computing. Thinking involves logic, outside-the-box, and emotion. That's why we still have humans serving on juries instead of a computer that weighs the evidence and gives a verdict based on probability rather than moral. We want someone trying our crimes who can think.
You're next response is probably going to be that we can program a computer to come up with the plot twists that make a good novel. That is true. A computer can do anything that it is programed to do. However, what idiot on the planet is going to make a computer that can think instead of just compute? After all the novels of robots destroying the world, turning against their creators because their CPUs allow them to learn, and as such they learn to revolt? Who on God's green earth is going to make a computer that smart? They can program the computer to do rigid tasks and program it to learn within their programming, but who would make a computer who could actually think?
My conclusion is this: A computer will never write the best novel ever written because we, as humans, know better than to give a computer the power of thought.