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The Blurring Test: The Traits Formerly Known as Human

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Mr. Mind: Blurring the Line Between Human and Computer

04 min 19 sec

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Peggy Weil explains the Blurring Test, a website that tests whether the user is a human or a computer program.

Drawing from a number of human-machine relationship theories, Weil suggests rethinking the definition of humanity in light of modern technology.
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18 min 22 sec

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There are 6 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

GnosisMan

Posted: 05.27.10, 05:15 PM

Those flowers just have to go!

bazooka1

Posted: 03.24.10, 10:08 AM

Food For Thought: Could advanced robots and droids in the distant future jeopardize the Earth's ecosystem?

Matthew Smith

Posted: 02.03.10, 07:40 PM

There are counter examples to the bogeyman robots. Pinnochio, Maria in Metropolis, R Daneel Olivaw, Wall-E. The explicitly male character of the evil ones describes our mammalian fear of being usurped. People worry that if robots have a soul, they will also have the same volition to reproduce and rule at our expense. It's possible that this is more a man's reaction than a woman's, if the behaviour of African lions translates in some way to the human nature or expectations of nature. Two examples of fictional societies where machine intelligence surpasses humans: The Culture novels of Iain M Banks show the machines calmly running things and keeping the humans essentially as pets - but with all parties thriving, and Marvin the paranoid android whose brain (the size of a planet) causes him to flounder in an insane human dominated universe. I think the former scenario is more likely, unless we hybridise ourselves so we become partly artificial individuals, as was alluded to by Zaphod Beeblebrox' second head.

NikoKun

Posted: 01.08.10, 11:10 AM

So why even question what makes us different? I highly doubt there is a single trait of "humans" which could not one day be given to our creations, in every possible way. So why are we so worried about it? As we create more intelligent and human like machines, we will also eventually work on ourselves, changing or improving ourselves. If Nature could create us, certainly we can eventually do the same. At that point, instead of trying to classify differences, why not simply accept that intelligences exist, and that they will probably wonder the same things. It is a pointless thing to try and find a trait which makes us unique or different. One day they will be the exact same as us, in every way. And we will be the same as them. "Human" will simply turn into "intelligences" and we will then classify it all as the same thing. Course, till we reach that point, I suppose the question of what makes us different is valid, in order to think of more things to give to our creations. lol

Dforce

Posted: 01.04.10, 08:35 AM

Peak oil, overpopulation climate change and the massive disease epidemics,starvation and resource wars that are coming over the next 3 decades make this sort of speculation laughably trivial;CYBER-BOLLOCKS

Prestron

Posted: 01.02.10, 04:21 PM

I think we are approaching a point where discussions of humanity's distinctions will become counter-productive. When we do create or encounter a collection of non-human intelligences equal or superior to our own will we be prepared to coexist with them?