Volume 20, Number 18 · November 15, 1973
How Smart Are Computers?
By Bernard Williams
What Computers Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason
by Hubert L. Dreyfus
Harper & Row, 259 pp., $8.95
Electronic machines of the kind generically called 'computers' can now do a number of things at least as well as human beings, and in some cases better. Many of these tasks are boring, such as finding addresses or counting things. Immunity to boredom is one thing that helps to give computers the edge over human beings in some tasks. Another is speed of operation: only a computer could do the calculations necessary for landing a module on the moon, since only a computer could do the sums in less time than it takes the module to get there.
Review, 5021 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |