Relevance
Fear of humanity being made obsolete by technology taps into some of modern humans' deepest fears. This can be shown to have been the case even before the computer became prominent, as in Karel Capek's 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). However, even as they were slowly being displaced from most physical tasks, humans have always prided themselves on their brains, taking the mechanistic 'thoughts' of early computers as proof that they would not be overtaken by their 'Frankenstein' creations.
While artificial intelligence, in terms of a replication of human intelligence, is still a remote concept, successes in certain parts of intelligence—as for example in the victories of the Deep Blue chess computer and the Watson Jeopardy! quiz show computer—have shaken previous certainty about a permanent place for humanity at the top of sapience.
Read more about this topic: Cybernetic Revolt
Famous quotes containing the word relevance:
“... whatever men do or know or experience can make sense only to the extent that it can be spoken about. There may be truths beyond speech, and they may be of great relevance to man in the singular, that is, to man in so far as he is not a political being, whatever else he may be. Men in the plural, that is, men in so far as they live and move and act in this world, can experience meaningfulness only because they can talk with and make sense to each other and to themselves.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance—due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author’s attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful—and possibly the only—help that can be given.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)