Volume 37, Number 1 · February 1, 1990
Matter Over Mind
By Roger Penrose
Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence
by Hans Moravec
Harvard University Press, 214 pp., $18.95
There can be no doubt that high-speed electronic computers are starting to have a considerable impact on modern human society. Moreover, in future years our civilization may well be transformed almost beyond recognition, largely because of new developments in computer technology, many of which are under active consideration at the moment. There is one fundamental question, however, whose answer will determine the very nature of this transformation: Is the process of human thought itself the mere carrying out of a computation, or does human intelligence involve some ingredient that is in principle not possible to incorporate into the action of a computer, as we now understand that term? If all of our mental activity is indeed the effect of mere computation, albeit computation of undoubtedly stupendous complication, then eventually computers will be able to take over even those activities in our society that at present require genuine human intelligence—and our virtually inevitable fate is, in this view, that they will ultimately become our masters. If, on the other hand, our minds transcend the action of any computation in some essential way, no matter how complicated that computation might be, then we may expect that computers will always remain subservient.
Review, 3462 words
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