I watched an interesting movie last week that I thought might be of interesting to anyone thinking about computers and their role in our lives. The movie is called Computer Chess, and is set in the late 70s at a hotel where a computer chess tournament is going on - a yearly event where programmers play against each other using their computers - some from high end companies, and some independent programmers. The idea is that whatever computer wins the tournament will eventually play a human being, and that eventually the computer will probably be able to beat that human - but not yet. The movie places itself at an interesting point in the technological revolution: computers aren't yet smarter than humans, but they surely will be soon (they are now, I'd say, especially with the internet). Also in the film is the plotline that one of the computers doesn't want to play against other computers anymore, and wants to play against humans - and has figured out how to know when playing a computer or playing a person. It's an interesting film that deals with the human psyche and the implications of technology in a world where it is so embraced, when perhaps we should be more wary of it than we are.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
I watched an interesting movie last week that I thought might be of interesting to anyone thinking about computers and their role in our lives. The movie is called Computer Chess, and is set in the late 70s at a hotel where a computer chess tournament is going on - a yearly event where programmers play against each other using their computers - some from high end companies, and some independent programmers. The idea is that whatever computer wins the tournament will eventually play a human being, and that eventually the computer will probably be able to beat that human - but not yet. The movie places itself at an interesting point in the technological revolution: computers aren't yet smarter than humans, but they surely will be soon (they are now, I'd say, especially with the internet). Also in the film is the plotline that one of the computers doesn't want to play against other computers anymore, and wants to play against humans - and has figured out how to know when playing a computer or playing a person. It's an interesting film that deals with the human psyche and the implications of technology in a world where it is so embraced, when perhaps we should be more wary of it than we are.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It is a curious thing the way chess has arisen as such a strong test case for human/computer interactions. I guess it offers a weird combination of creativity and computing power. The recent example of a computer playing on Jeopardy was an interesting shift to a different format. This looks like an interesting video about the interface at an earlier stage.
ReplyDelete