A walk on the wild side

Daniel Fusch · 11 Aug 2000, 22:01 · from urth-v0029.mbox · original

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From: "Daniel Fusch" <dfusch at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: (urth) A walk on the wild side
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 22:01:57 GMT
Message-ID: <urth-v0029-0155 at digest.urth.net>
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>From: "Greene, Carlton" <CGreene2 at hunton.com>
>Given this separation, by what means did man "sell" his wild side to the
>machines?
>

Ambiguous...but I took this simply to mean that in creating machines that=20
are artificial intelligences and that therefore live and have personalities=20
(and "hearts"), humanity created beings capable of developing culture,=20
feeling, emotion, of making stories and of telling them, etc. In the race t=
o=20
create artificial beings that would be "human," mankind did its job too=20
well--or rather, they could not help but make machines that could feel as=20
well as think, though they "never reckoned with that." They made imitations=20
of themselves, children who still had the art and imagination the parents=20
had forgotten. Frankenstein creates a monster that has its own humanity and=20
is capable of emotion and great passion, though Frankenstein had meant to=20
design only a tool for his own drive for perfection and glory; the Creature=20
comes to hate its creator both for creating it and for the creator's own=20
lack of emotion and sympathy.

Daniel
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