5/11/2023 0 Comments Alone Together by Sherry TurkleNow I was among them and, like any anthropologist, something of a stranger in a strange land. AI scientists debated whether machines of the future would have their smarts programmed into them or whether intelligence might emerge from simple instructions written into machine hardware, just as neurobiologists currently imagine that intelligence and reflective self-consciousness emerge from the relatively simple architecture and activity of the human brain. The intellectual buzz in the still-young field of artificial intelligence was over programs that could recognize simple shapes and manipulate blocks. No one knew to what further uses home computers might be put. The people who bought or built them experimented with programming, often making their own simple games. The first home computers were being bought by people called hobbyists. Children played tic-tac-toe with their electronic toys, video game missiles took on invading asteroids, and “intelligent” programs could hold up their end of a serious chess match. Thirty years ago, when I joined the faculty at MIT to study computer culture, the world retained a certain innocence.
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