Re: Nanotechnology

On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

>   Dr. Who is a fine television programme but if you base your

That's debatable to a lot of people, but probably not in Britain.

> understanding of science (computer or otherwise) on it you will be in
> for a rude awakening when you enter the real world (like say your
> typical fifth grade science class).  Perhaps a more instructive

Oh I definitely agree with this.  As a computer engineering student
myself, I often find the stuff in Dr. Who downright misleading.

> example would be the recent series of chess matches between Kasparov
> and Deep Blue, in which Kasparov managed to defeat, rather soundly, a
> chess computer that, for a few games at least, appeared to be his
> equal.  He did this by exploiting some apparent weaknesses of the AI
> which a human would probably not exhibit.  Still, the very fact that
> Deep Blue beat Kasparov in several games indicates that it's a pretty
> damned good chess player.  By whenever it is that Traveller happens, I
> think we can be as sure as we can be of anything that AI will have
> completely transcended anything we can even imagine.	As will the rest
> of science, probably.

Remember though, the computer plays chess by "brute force", by running
through possible moves.  First of all, it lacks the "intuition" (I
twinge
at that term but it seems the best word at this time.) that a grand
master
with a great deal of experience actually has.  Secondly, the obvious
limitation here is computing power.  The computer can probably muster a
relatively simple and structured game like chess, but for a game with
more
possibilities, such as Go, we would have to wait for even faster and
more
powerful computers if we keep using the methods we do now.

						Chen-song

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Over its bloated, corpulent body the creature known as Santa
Claus drapes a tunic the color of fresh blood...

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