Let me add some more substance to this discussion with a bit more information on what my lecture will be about. It is a little long but I hope it will add context to the excellent discussion that is already unfolding
In this lecture, Kevin Silber will explore the idea that the internet has now overtaken the human brain as the most intelligent entity on the planet. Combining information from the fields of Psychology, Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, he will explore the capacities of the mind, the brain and the best computers around to examine the limitations of each. He will pit the speed of computer calculations against the learning capacity of the brain and the mind’s ability to appreciate humour and sarcasm.
If we examine what the internet is good at we are all familiar with its speed of processing. For example, type anything into Google and it will return a set of option websites, articles and so on in the blink of an eye. Our brains cannot compete with such data access. However, that is probably where the internet stops in terms of outsmarting a human. The internet is non-selective, it cannot process information in a reasoned way. This is the critical difference in determining the ‘bigness’ of our brains. An example will serve to illustrate this.
Imagine you are looking at a photo of a chair that you have never seen before. You instantly recognise it as a chair. That photo could have been taken from any conceivable angle in 3D space and you would still instantly recognise it as a chair. In addition, you would instantly know what a chair can be used for – not just to sit on- and would also be able to instantly relate it to other chairs you have encountered, to the kind of décor it would look good in, to your knowledge of style, materials, and so on. It might trigger memories (that’s like a chair we used to have when I was growing up) or a multitude of other thoughts. It is these aspects of human brains that make them bigger than the internet.
A further issue for debate resides with artificial replication. If the mere size of the internet was all that mattered, why would we struggle to replicate even the simplest of human capabilities with artificial intelligence? Granted we have some startling achievements like Asimo, the robot that can walk up a flight of stairs but we are hardly impressed when that ability is displayed by a 10 year old. We have yet to see sophisticated examples of computers (or the internet) appreciating humour.
There is no doubt that the size of the collective knowledge of the internet outweighs that of any single human brain. Perhaps, though, size really doesn’t matter – it is what you can do with all that information that does. Besides, if the information on the internet is simply the total of what we humans have put there, perhaps there is nothing to really worry about. On the other hand …
I will welcome further comments
Kevin Silber