Hubert Dreyfus
Watson's Relevance and Mattering to Us
03/03/11 20:54 Filed in: Popular Culture
In a eductive, My Dear Watson">recent post, I commented on the computer Watson that beat famous Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings. There, I discussed Dreyfus’ argument that computers can never be humans. In a recent editorial, Stanley Fish let Dreyfus speak about Watson.
Dreyfus notes that Watson belongs to a new kind of programming that tries to include responses and learning in the environment rather than strict programming to account for every situation. Yet, even here, Watson shows why computers fail to be like human beings: nothing matters to computers. Thus, Dreyfus writes “The fact is, things are relevant for human beings because at root we are beings for whom things matter. Relevance and mattering are two sides of the same coin.”
This insight helps explain some of our favorite robots in the history of science fiction. Asimov’s robot in I, Robot is concerned about the family he serves. They are relevant to him and they matter to him. Particularly their welfare. This same notion of concern for others is kept, though in a different form, in the Will Smith movie I, Robot. In that movie, the robot is concerned both for his master, who he killed, and also for humanity as a whole.
If we turn our attention to perhaps the most famous robot of all, Data in Star Trek, we can discover another thing that matters to robots: being human. In the original Asimov story and throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation, the principal androids want to be human. In the Asimov story, the robot wants to be human so much, he has himself programmed to die so he can experience death. (Something can be said here about Heidegger and his notion of being towards death, but that will be for another time.) In Star Trek, Data is constantly seeking to be human by having emotions. In both cases, being human matter to the robots/androids. What science fiction reveals, then, is that for a robot to seem human to us, they must be concerned about something -- something must matter to them.
Of course, being relevant and mattering are, in the end, aspects of our bodily existence. The phenomenologist Max Scheler points this out most clearly. Our life drives direct our perception and help shape the world for us. That is, the world matters to us because we have drives that motivate us to act on the world.
The question remains whether the new approach of scientists working in AI (artificial intelligence) can bridge the gap between having no concerns to being embedded in relevance and mattering the way human beings are. Dreyfus seems to see some hope here. I think, on the other hand, that if scientists can make this move, it won’t be a robot or android that we have worked from, but some hybrid of animal/human/computer.
Dreyfus notes that Watson belongs to a new kind of programming that tries to include responses and learning in the environment rather than strict programming to account for every situation. Yet, even here, Watson shows why computers fail to be like human beings: nothing matters to computers. Thus, Dreyfus writes “The fact is, things are relevant for human beings because at root we are beings for whom things matter. Relevance and mattering are two sides of the same coin.”
This insight helps explain some of our favorite robots in the history of science fiction. Asimov’s robot in I, Robot is concerned about the family he serves. They are relevant to him and they matter to him. Particularly their welfare. This same notion of concern for others is kept, though in a different form, in the Will Smith movie I, Robot. In that movie, the robot is concerned both for his master, who he killed, and also for humanity as a whole.
If we turn our attention to perhaps the most famous robot of all, Data in Star Trek, we can discover another thing that matters to robots: being human. In the original Asimov story and throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation, the principal androids want to be human. In the Asimov story, the robot wants to be human so much, he has himself programmed to die so he can experience death. (Something can be said here about Heidegger and his notion of being towards death, but that will be for another time.) In Star Trek, Data is constantly seeking to be human by having emotions. In both cases, being human matter to the robots/androids. What science fiction reveals, then, is that for a robot to seem human to us, they must be concerned about something -- something must matter to them.
Of course, being relevant and mattering are, in the end, aspects of our bodily existence. The phenomenologist Max Scheler points this out most clearly. Our life drives direct our perception and help shape the world for us. That is, the world matters to us because we have drives that motivate us to act on the world.
The question remains whether the new approach of scientists working in AI (artificial intelligence) can bridge the gap between having no concerns to being embedded in relevance and mattering the way human beings are. Dreyfus seems to see some hope here. I think, on the other hand, that if scientists can make this move, it won’t be a robot or android that we have worked from, but some hybrid of animal/human/computer.
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Deductive, My Dear Watson
28/02/11 21:32 Filed in: Human Nature
Have you heard of the robot that beat the best Jeopardy player? You know, scientists are getting closer and closer to making thinking computers -- turning robots into humans. It’s all over the news, in the movies, in the science-fiction. Robots that can think, interact in the world, do everything we can do -- well, soon, anyway. In the next fifty years.
Yet, robots, no matter how advanced they get, will be unable really to do what human beings do. Stanley Fish summarizes some of the argument from the philosopher Hubert reyfus on this point:
What computers can’t do, we don’t have to do because the worlds we live in are already built; we don’t walk around putting discrete items together until they add up to a context; we walk around with a contextual sense — a sense of where we are and what’s at stake and what our resources are — already in place; we inhabit worldly spaces already organized by purposes, projects and expectations. The computer inhabits nothing and has no purposes and because it has no purposes it cannot alter its present (wholly predetermined) “behavior” when it fails to advance the purposes it doesn’t have. When as human beings we determine that “the data coming in make no sense” relative to what we want to do, we can, Dreyfus explains “try a new total hypothesis,” begin afresh. A computer, in contrast, “could at best be programmed to try out a series of hypotheses to see which best fit the fixed data.”
Human beings are born - thrust - into a world, but, more important, we come already experiencing the world. That experience is shaped by our drives, our interests, all the many things that go into shaping the kind of persons we are and the sort of motives that we have. We have context.
Context entails, as Dreyfus explains in his book What Computers Still Can’t Do, and what Fish gets at in his article, meaning and intention which are responsive to the changes in the context and in our understanding of the context. If I walk into my dark house and someone jumps out at me, my reaction depends on my context. Is it my birthday or am I a retired spy? Functioning without context leaves us seeking the context. Think of any movie you’ve watched with a plot-twist. The protagonist has one context in mind or mat be seeking the context for what happened -- The Bourne Identity is an example of the latter kind of film -- and then he finally settles on the right interpretation to make all the pieces fall into place.
Computers lack context partly because they lack drives, partly because they lack purpose, partly because they lack biology. All of these things are central to being human -- or being animal. What computers can show us is how important our animal nature is to our free will and the meaning of our lives.
Yet, robots, no matter how advanced they get, will be unable really to do what human beings do. Stanley Fish summarizes some of the argument from the philosopher Hubert reyfus on this point:
What computers can’t do, we don’t have to do because the worlds we live in are already built; we don’t walk around putting discrete items together until they add up to a context; we walk around with a contextual sense — a sense of where we are and what’s at stake and what our resources are — already in place; we inhabit worldly spaces already organized by purposes, projects and expectations. The computer inhabits nothing and has no purposes and because it has no purposes it cannot alter its present (wholly predetermined) “behavior” when it fails to advance the purposes it doesn’t have. When as human beings we determine that “the data coming in make no sense” relative to what we want to do, we can, Dreyfus explains “try a new total hypothesis,” begin afresh. A computer, in contrast, “could at best be programmed to try out a series of hypotheses to see which best fit the fixed data.”
Human beings are born - thrust - into a world, but, more important, we come already experiencing the world. That experience is shaped by our drives, our interests, all the many things that go into shaping the kind of persons we are and the sort of motives that we have. We have context.
Context entails, as Dreyfus explains in his book What Computers Still Can’t Do, and what Fish gets at in his article, meaning and intention which are responsive to the changes in the context and in our understanding of the context. If I walk into my dark house and someone jumps out at me, my reaction depends on my context. Is it my birthday or am I a retired spy? Functioning without context leaves us seeking the context. Think of any movie you’ve watched with a plot-twist. The protagonist has one context in mind or mat be seeking the context for what happened -- The Bourne Identity is an example of the latter kind of film -- and then he finally settles on the right interpretation to make all the pieces fall into place.
Computers lack context partly because they lack drives, partly because they lack purpose, partly because they lack biology. All of these things are central to being human -- or being animal. What computers can show us is how important our animal nature is to our free will and the meaning of our lives.