Epstein Secrets

n Turing wondered what it would take for machines to become intelligent. John von Neumann wondered what it would take for machines to self-reproduce. Claude Shannon wondered what it would take for machines to communicate reliably, no matter how much noise intervened. Norbert Wiener wondered how long it wo

s” of the Industrial Revolution, and perhaps even earlier, to the archetypes of Prometheus, Pandora, and Faust. And today it has gone into high gear. Jeremiahs, many of them (like Wiener) from the worlds of science and technology, have sounded alarms about nanotechnology, genetic engineering, Big Data, and p

, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shan

based intelligence was simply a catalyst for the evolution of silicon-based intelligence. For quite a long time, both Hollywood movies and scientific Jeremiahs have been predicting our eventual capitulation to our computer overlords. We all await the singularity, which always seems to be just over the horizo

n Turing wondered what it would take for machines to become intelligent. John von Neumann wondered what it would take for machines to self-reproduce. Claude Shannon wondered what it would take for machines to communicate reliably, no matter how much noise intervened. Norbert Wiener wondered how long it wo

s” of the Industrial Revolution, and perhaps even earlier, to the archetypes of Prometheus, Pandora, and Faust. And today it has gone into high gear. Jeremiahs, many of them (like Wiener) from the worlds of science and technology, have sounded alarms about nanotechnology, genetic engineering, Big Data, and p

, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shan

based intelligence was simply a catalyst for the evolution of silicon-based intelligence. For quite a long time, both Hollywood movies and scientific Jeremiahs have been predicting our eventual capitulation to our computer overlords. We all await the singularity, which always seems to be just over the horizo