Peter a Bornstein

2030 - When Computers Become Human Peter a Bornstein

Where did counting begin? Artifacts more than 5,000 years old have been found, with notches on bones. Were these notations etched to count seasons, kills, children?The origins of mathematics accompanied the evolution of social systems. Many, many social needs require calculation and numbers. As society formed and organized, the need to express quantity emerged. When society emerged from hunting and gathering to an agrarian society, there was a need to account for surpluses. Counting probably arose spontaneously more or less independently from place to place, tribe to tribe. Various number systems arose, remarkably similar. Who first conceived the idea that someday computers would "think" in ways that one could not distinguish from a human? Perhaps it was Alan Turing. His prediction that computers would someday "think" so similarly to humans, that if a problem was posed to a human in one room, and a computer in another, the questioner could not distinguish from the answer which room it came from. He predicted that this would happen within 50 years with a 30% success rate. Although his prediction did not materialize, recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and machine learning have convinced many experts in the technology community that, by 2030, the 30% "indistinguishable" rate will be achieved or exceeded.