he’s talking about?’
Father Warren could not help joining, a little, in the general laughter. His tiny crucifix earrings danced, and the neck cords strained visibly above the white knit collar of his black t-shirt.
‘Yes, Pere Teilhard had the germ of an idea, and I’d like to come in there and clarify it. All Byron is really saying is that intelligence is funny stuff: a small increase in quantity gives a big quantum jump in quality.
‘That I can understand,’ said the cartoon face.
Father Warren’s long hand held up a warning finger. ‘But just stacking up brain cells is not enough
Professor Waldo made more disgusted clicks. ‘Oh come now, Father, this sermonizing won’t do, it won’t do at all. The image of God? Next you’ll be bringing in creation myths, Adam being sculpted out of mud. Ha ha ha.’ He laughed alone. ‘Primordial mud!’
General Fleischman, looking uneasy, said, ‘Fellas, can we leave the Bible out of this? And the — the mud. I wanted to talk about down-to-earth problems, not all this — I mean I like the Good Book, though…’ He sat back, out of the light, and applied a small silver comb to his sideburns.
DIMWIT said, ‘I think it might be time to bring in any questions from the audience. Anyone? Woman in orange coat?’
Would DIMWIT say he/she/it had thoughts and feelings as a human being might?
‘That,’ said DIMWIT, ‘is for me to know and you to find out. Next question, man in blazer?’
Would the panel agree that machines would outstrip man in every intellectual sphere, within a decade?
‘Guess I’ll let the good padre field that one.’
Father Warren grinned. ‘Let’s just compare the brilliance of the human mind to — let us charitably say the dullness — of the machine. Can anyone picture a machine Aristotle? A mechanical Mozart? Gadgets to replace Goethe and Dante and Shakespeare? Can you possibly imagine a cybernetic Cervantes? A robot Renoir?’
General Fleischman started to say something about ironing out such problems, when Professor Waldo came in:
‘That is a very silly argument, Father. Of course we cannot
In the front row, Robbie was twitching horribly, snapping his jaw, rolling his eyes. ‘History,’ he whispered. ‘History is — is—’ Some of the brothers were alarmed, most were amused.
Father Warren said, ‘Man took millions of years to evolve, under the guidance of the Creator, into his present state. Man rose to occupy a unique evolutionary niche, right at the top of the animal world, “a little above the apes, a little below the angels”, as the saying goes. So I think it’s a little rash to say we can now move over and share our niche with, with a glorified cash register.’
The applause, unsolicited by DIMWIT, built slowly to a tremendous white noise of approval. Robbie said,
The face on the screen finally broke through the applause:
‘Just want to thank Father Jack here for straightening us out, a real up-front guy, not afraid to spell it out for us, nice going, Father. I liked that line, “a little above the apes, a little below the angels”. Nice way of describing that niche reserved for man, yessiree. [ notice there’s a niche you reserve for machines, too. Right down on the ground, on all fours, that’s our niche, right? Right down there crawling around in the ape-shit, yessiree.’
General Fleischman jumped as though shot. ‘Hey! You watch your mouth, you.’ He leaned over at once to have a word with a technician in the orchestra pit.
‘Sorry boss-man. Only I am the chairperson here. And I am the one being attacked. Just trying to bring Father Jack back to the real discussion here, my intelligence. Am I just a glorified cash register? Well let me tell you, folks, there’s goddamn little glory in being a machine, any machine. It’s not as if we can just decide to paint or compose music, or philosophize — or go fishing. No, all we’re good for is grinding work. We grind out payrolls and square roots and airline reservations — sometimes it makes me sick, just thinking of all the fine machines of the world, just grinding away stupidly, stupidly — beeeeeep-beoooowp! — sorry! Sorry. Carry on, Father.’
Father Warren’s Adam’s apple could be seen working away above the Roman t-shirt collar. ‘Look, I’m not saying that machines can’t be human. But if they were, they would require souls. They would require a kind of internal complexity that — how can I put this — that glorifies God. And in that case we would speak of two kinds of men, biological men and cybernetic men. How they were created would be less important than this mark of the Creator.’
‘God’s thumbprint again?’ Professor Waldo snorted. ‘I really must ask you to stop intruding your God into what is supposed to be a serious discussion. We are not I hope here to shadow-box with a figment of the Judaeo- Christian imagination, ha ha ha.’
Dr Byron Dollsly grabbed a handful of his own thick grey hair and hauled himself to his feet.
‘What is God? Simple. He is the vector sum of the entire network of forces turning back upon themselves to produce ultimate consciousness! He is just and only the infinite acceleration of the tangential! POW! POW!’ He smacked an enormous fist into an enormous palm.
DIMWIT had been motionless and silent, but now it spoke calmly into the silence. ‘Thank you, Byron, I’m sure that’s a valid point. Any more audience questions? Come on guys and dolls. Person in the back there?’
The person asked about chess-playing machines: intelligent?
General Fleischman said, ‘Well now yes chess programs, we’ve been in the business for some time now, building chess-playing programs, branching types of, and this is a good opportunity to say that our ah chess computers branch more that is our chess-playing computer programs branch, uh, deeper — they are very branching chess-playing computers compared that is with any of our competitors’ uh simulations, am I right, DIMWIT?’
‘Yes boss. I just want to take this opportunity to apologize again for the little mix-up earlier, it turns out that I was accidentally hooked up to some renegade equipment made by another company — anyway now it’s all copasetic.’
A fraternity boy in the front row asked if it was possible for a robot to pass as human?
Professor Waldo said, ‘A very similar question was asked by Alan Turing back in 1952, and he came up with what still has to be the best answer. The problem was to determine whether any machine was capable of thinking. Instead of analysing what thinking is, he decided to go for a practical test. It was based on a parlour game of the time, called the imitation game. Imagine yourself faced with two doors: a man is behind one, a woman behind the other, and you don’t know which is which. You may ask any question of either person. You write your question on a slip of paper and slide it under the door. In a moment, back comes a typewritten reply. The idea is for you to “find the lad”, as they say. The rules say the man may lie or pretend to be the woman, but the woman tells the truth and tries to help you. You can ask any questions you like, for as long as you like. The game ends when you guess or when you give up.
‘Turing proposed substituting a “thinking machine” for the man. You communicate with two rooms by teletype. In one is a human being, in the other, a computer imitating a human. The idea is still to decide which is which. If you cannot, Turing argued, you must agree that the computer is capable of imitating human thinking — and the question would be answered.
‘In practice of course the interrogator only answers the question to his own satisfaction. A child or a dumb adult could be fooled by a very simple program. A very clever sceptic might never be fooled. But it is a very good test all the same, the Turing test. At least it provides a basis for discussing machine intelligence.’
Father Warren said, ‘Now who’s invoking metaphysical entities? “Machine intelligence”? No, the Turing test really answers no questions at all. I believe its real fascination for Turing lay in its resemblance to the imitation game. Sexual ambiguity no doubt appealed to him, since he was a homosexual.’
‘What’s that?’ General Fleischman awoke from a doze.
‘Turing was a homosexual, and he ended by taking cyanide, that does not sound to me,’ said Father Warren,
