Part 41

Self-reproducing machines may depend on a basic “cell” containing a blueprint of what it should look like when complete, which simply hunts around for the proper parts and assembles itself. In the process it may even make an improvement or two. Having finished, it will make a carbon copy of its blueprint and start another “baby” machine on the way. Writers on this subject—some under the guise of science-fiction—wonder at what point the machines will begin to wonder about how they came to be. Will they produce philosophic or religious literature, or will this step in evolution prove that consciousness was a bad mutation, like seven fingers or three heads, and drop it from the list of instructions?

Clarke admits that the take-over by the machines is centuries off; meantime we can enjoy a golden age of intellectronic partnership with the machine. Linus Pauling, pointing out that knowledge of molecular structure has taken away the mystery of life, hopes that a “molecular theory of thinking” will be developed and so improve man that he may remake his thoughts and his world. Mathematician John Williams believes that existing human intelligence can preserve its distinction only by withdrawing from competition with the machine and defining human intelligence rigorously enough to exclude that of the machines. He suggests using the computer not just for a molecular theory of thinking, but also in the science of genetics to design our children!

Whatever lies ahead, it seems obvious that one of the most important things the computer can help us think about is the computer itself. It is a big part of our future.

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Index

Abacus, 5, 21, 22, 60, 85, 129, 178, 181

Abstracting computer, 245, 248

Accuracy analog computer, 82 digital computer, 87

Ackerman, 110

ADAM computer, 258

Adaptive principle, 205

Adders, 107, 108, 115

Adding machine, 129

Addition, computer, 106

Address, computer, 63

Advertising, use of computer, 180

AID, 183, 184

AIEE, 254

Aiken, 46

Air Force, 6, 132, 133, 151, 160, 182, 225

Airborne computer, 90, 154, 158, 162

AiResearch Mfg. Co., 69

Airline reservations, computer, 58, 183, 184

Algebra, Boolean, 8, 110, 119

Alpha rhythm, 126

Alphanumeric code, 104

American Premium Systems, Inc., 175

Analog computer, 21, 45, 72, 74, 80, 125, 203 direct, 76, 79 direct-current, 76 discrete, 80 indirect, 76, 79 mechanical differential analyzer, 76 scaling, 76