Artificial Intelligence in William Gibson’s Neuromancer
Artificial Intelligence is a term not too widely used in today’s society. With today’s technology we haven’t found a way to enable someone to leave their physical body and let their mind survive within a computer. Could it be possible? Maybe someday, but for now it’s just in theory. The novel by William Gibson, Neuromancer, has touched greatly on the idea of artificial intelligence. He describes it as a world where many things are possible. By simply logging on the computer, it opens up a world we could never comprehend. The possibilities are endless in the world of William Gibson.
This world of artificial intelligence has the power to produce many questions and theories because we don’t understand something that isn’t possible. “How smart’s an AI, Case? Depends. Some aren’t much smarter than dogs. Pets. Cost a fortune anyway. The real smart ones are as smart as the Turing heat is willing to let ‘em get.” (Page 95) This shows that an artificial intelligence can be programmed to only do certain ...
Andy Clark strongly argues for the theory that computers have the potential for being intelligent beings in his work “Mindware: Meat Machines.” The support Clark uses to defend his claims states the similar comparison of humans and machines using an array of symbols to perform functions. The main argument of his work can be interpreted as follows:
In the postmodern world of William Gibson's Neuromancer, nature is dead, and the world is run by the logic of the corporate machine. Confronted by a reality that is stark, barren, and metallic, and the hopelessness that this reality engenders, the postmodern protagonist, like Case, often immerses himself or herself in an alternate form of reality that is offered in the form of addiction (to virtual reality or drugs, for example), addictions that are made possible by the same society that makes an escape desirable. Such addictions are logical products of the post-modern capitalist society because they perpetuate the steadfast power of the corporation by allowing would-be dissidents an escape from reality, thereby preventing successful rebellion and maintaining the pervasive societal apathy necessary to allow the corporation to dominate undeterred. Case, as the addictive anti-hero, is a product of this stifling cycle of apathy. Lacking the motivation or drive to instigate any true change in his reality, he avoids the unpleasant realities of his world by entering into the altered reality of addiction.
John Searle’s Chinese room argument from his work “Minds, Brains, and Programs” was a thought experiment against the premises of strong Artificial Intelligence (AI). The premises of conclude that something is of the strong AI nature if it can understand and it can explain how human understanding works. I will argue that the Chinese room argument successfully disproves the conclusion of strong AI, however, it does not provide an explanation of what understanding is which becomes problematic when creating a distinction between humans and machines.
Power is a quality, a tool, and a weapon utilized for a variety of reasons. It is in the form of a quality in which it gives the possessor, a sense of control. In the form of a weapon, power is possessed in order to produce a negative environment of hurt and punishment. But, in the form of a tool, power may be used in order to gain something more, something positive. Thus, power creates a sense of superiority which may result in consequences on both side of the spectrum, the good or the bad.
Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, in London. This year is exactly ten years into Queen Victoria’s sixty-four year reign of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was renowned for its patriarchal Society and definition by class. These two things provide vital background to the novel, as Jane suffers from both. Jane Eyre relates in some ways to Brontë’s own life, as its original title suggest, “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”. Charlotte Brontë would have suffered from too, as a relatively poor woman. She would have been treated lowly within the community. In fact, the book itself was published under a pseudonym of Currer Bell, the initials taken from Brontë’s own name, due to the fact that a book published by a woman was seen as inferior, as they were deemed intellectually substandard to men. Emily Brontë, Charlotte’s sister, was also forced to publish her most famous novel, Wuthering Heights, under the nom de plume of Ellis Bell, again taking the initials of her name to form her own alias. The novel is a political touchstone to illustrate the period in which it was written, and also acts as a critique of the Victorian patriarchal society.
One of the hottest topics that modern science has been focusing on for a long time is the field of artificial intelligence, the study of intelligence in machines or, according to Minsky, “the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men”.(qtd in Copeland 1). Artificial Intelligence has a lot of applications and is used in many areas. “We often don’t notice it but AI is all around us. It is present in computer games, in the cruise control in our cars and the servers that route our email.” (BBC 1). Different goals have been set for the science of Artificial Intelligence, but according to Whitby the most mentioned idea about the goal of AI is provided by the Turing Test. This test is also called the imitation game, since it is basically a game in which a computer imitates a conversating human. In an analysis of the Turing Test I will focus on its features, its historical background and the evaluation of its validity and importance.
Moglen, Helen. "The Creation of a Feminist Myth." Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: W.W. Norton, 1987. 484-491. Print.
... in 21th century, and it might already dominate humans’ life. Jastrow predicted computer will be part of human society in the future, and Levy’s real life examples matched Jastrow’s prediction. The computer intelligence that Jastrow mentioned was about imitated human brain and reasoning mechanism. However, according to Levy, computer intelligence nowadays is about developing AI’s own reasoning pattern and handling complicated task from data sets and algorithms, which is nothing like human. From Levy’s view on today’s version of AI technology, Jastrow’s prediction about AI evolution is not going to happen. As computer intelligence does not aim to recreate a human brain, the whole idea of computer substitutes human does not exist. Also, Levy said it is irrelevant to fear AI may control human, as people in today’s society cannot live without computer intelligence.
William Gibson's Neuromancer sets tone 'postmodern science fiction' or 'cyberpunk science fiction.' According to the author of "Science Fiction and the Postmodern," John R. R. Christie, postmodern requires that humans take the associations of everyday life and transform them into something different (39).Sarah also claims that Neuromancer follows the cyberpunk category.Unlike other science fiction books that we read in this class, Gibson's story takes place everywhere in this planet, starting from Chiba in Japan, Istanbul, Paris and Vancouver in Canada. These familiar settings make Gibson's story more understandable and believable.
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. London, Penguin Books Ltd.: 1996. (Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Mason).
There have been many different outlooks and theories on how sleep deprivation can affect health. Sleep deprivation is when a person cannot sleep, and does not have enough sleep. This is also known as ‘wakefulness’ (sleep.2014) and not having enough sleep; ‘lack of sleep’. This literature review will cover four main concepts of sleep deprivation. The key ideas in this paper would be the research done and how many hours a person is supposed to sleep, some disorders and what loss of sleep will do to a person.
Since antiquity the human mind has been intrigued by artificial intelligence hence, such rapid growth of computer science has raised many issues concerning the isolation of the human mind.
"Artificial Intelligence: Cannibal Or Missionary?." AI & Society 21.4 (2007): 651-657.Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
The traditional notion that seeks to compare human minds, with all its intricacies and biochemical functions, to that of artificially programmed digital computers, is self-defeating and it should be discredited in dialogs regarding the theory of artificial intelligence. This traditional notion is akin to comparing, in crude terms, cars and aeroplanes or ice cream and cream cheese. Human mental states are caused by various behaviours of elements in the brain, and these behaviours in are adjudged by the biochemical composition of our brains, which are responsible for our thoughts and functions. When we discuss mental states of systems it is important to distinguish between human brains and that of any natural or artificial organisms which is said to have central processing systems (i.e. brains of chimpanzees, microchips etc.). Although various similarities may exist between those systems in terms of functions and behaviourism, the intrinsic intentionality within those systems differ extensively. Although it may not be possible to prove that whether or not mental states exist at all in systems other than our own, in this paper I will strive to present arguments that a machine that computes and responds to inputs does indeed have a state of mind, but one that does not necessarily result in a form of mentality. This paper will discuss how the states and intentionality of digital computers are different from the states of human brains and yet they are indeed states of a mind resulting from various functions in their central processing systems.
In order to see how artificial intelligence plays a role on today’s society, I believe it is important to dispel any misconceptions about what artificial intelligence is. Artificial intelligence has been defined many different ways, but the commonality between all of them is that artificial intelligence theory and development of computer systems that are able to perform tasks that would normally require a human intelligence such as decision making, visual recognition, or speech recognition. However, human intelligence is a very ambiguous term. I believe there are three main attributes an artificial intelligence system has that makes it representative of human intelligence (Source 1). The first is problem solving, the ability to look ahead several steps in the decision making process and being able to choose the best solution (Source 1). The second is the representation of knowledge (Source 1). While knowledge is usually gained through experience or education, intelligent agents could very well possibly have a different form of knowledge. Access to the internet, the la...