The newest wave of interest in Artificial Intelligence is different from the two others I have experienced. In the mid 1970’s, I, and many others became enamored with the idea that we might actually be able to build tools that could think for themselves. Imagine, I thought…” a drill that knows where to drill and can get up to do it by itself while I sat sipping a Pina Colada on the beach!” This admittedly weird example may at first seem useless until you fill in the context behind it. The 1970’s ushered in a kind of microelectronics revolution of sorts in the United States. At that time I still owned a tube tester and needed it from time to time. Transistors were becoming “old school” and new integrated circuits began to be the rage. My Radio Shack soldering iron and stacks of old tube driven radios and televisions (from where my back stock of parts came) were quickly replaced by shelves bursting with those dark blue Integrated Circuit manuals from places like Hamilton Avnet and Texas Instruments. Continue reading “How to Speak to a Robot”
