Editorial: Artificial Intelligence - Evidence of Design
“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well” (Psa. 139:14).
In the June 29, 2001 issue of the Daily Texan (The University of Texas’ daily student newspaper), staff writer Devin Griffiths reported on an Austin based company, Cycorp, which is a leading force in the development of AI, (artificial intelligence). Simply put, AI is the capacity of a computer to reason and learn on its own, without any outside help. Readers may be familiar with the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had as a lead character a thinking, feeling, lying, and ultimately killing computer named HAL. Recently another theatrical release has captured the imagination of filmgoers. AI: Artificial Intelligence, has as its premise the creation of a robotic child programmed with the capacity to love.
There is often a vast gulf between the imaginative world of science fiction and the reality of hard science. What sounds plausible in movies and books may in reality either be impossible or beyond the realm of man’s actual technological achievements. This is certainly true with regard to the state of AI development at the present time. As Griffiths states in his article, “…despite vast technological developments, researchers in the real 2001 are still trying to get computers to read.”