After all these years that we have been at this game; after all the different operating system and all the constant upgrading of software the question still remains – why are they still so damn stupid.
Okay maybe they aren’t if you are working in robotics or some fancy AI development world but for the rest of us shmucks they haven’t gotten any smarter since the first day the personal computer hit the market. Through it all computers are just ones and zeros being tossed around in as virtual space and it doesn’t matter what operating system is your personal poison.
Where is the machine that knows your habits and reacts to them. Where is the computer that knows that when you first start it up that you need certain programs to run. Not because you – or the developer – has added some link to the startup routine but because the computer learns from observing your actions and after asking for confirmation adds those actions to its repertoire of things it must do.
Whether it be startup behaviors or time based actions why isn’t the machine smart enough to see this pattern and make it so that it happens without your needing to tell the computer to do the action every time.
Or how about a machine that is smart enough to once and for all be able to tell what the hell spam is and send it back to sender to the garbage bin.
The answer is simple really – computers are stupid. They are nothing more than the playing field of two single numeric values. Computers are stupid because we aren’t smart enough to utilize the inherent capabilities of those ones and zeros to their fullest potential – much like our own minds.
In the twenty some years that we have been using these machines we still haven’t trained these machines to make our life any easier. In many cases our failure to figure out how to really use the computer has only made our lives difficult and less productive.
It’s not not so much that the machines that are stupid but more us the creators; of what could truly be the best thing to happen to mankind, that are stupid. So remember that the next time you want to throw the computer out the window as you shout for all the world to hear – “stupid damn machine…..”
Listening to: Enigma – 15 Years After CD5, Voyageur – Page of Cups
[tags]computers, stupid, technology[/tags]
