Andersen on Marx

[Mattcapri at aol.com]

Well, I must respect this fellow for going out on what, perhaps for some 
shoddy reasons, is a tenuous limb. As I read the first 5/6ths of the article 
I was anticipating the positive reactions of my co-workers, and even my 
go-playing/engineering student stepbrother as I painlessly slip them a bit of 
Marx deftly packaged in this article. It's an excellent article, and now I 
wish I hadn't missed out on Spy in its day. But, the following paragraphs 
seem a little creepy, I'd say it's from too much Star Trek, but those 
scriptwriters don't manufacture fear so much as locate it when they present 
the ultra-dystopic, borg. Perhaps I overreact, maybe a cute, friendly  
machine working on a degree in Oral History  at the New School will interview 
me some time in the 2060's.  Probably in this very room, if only by virtue of 
my good health and longevity.

<<The great new philosophical and political schism of the 21st century 
will concern computers and their status as creatures rather than 
machines. In my lifetime, the sentimental regard for computers' 
apparent intelligence -- their dignity -- will resemble that now 
accorded gorillas and chimps. And it will not stop there. In his 
book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human 
Intelligence," Ray Kurzweil, the computer scientist, quite 
convincingly predicts that around 2030 computers will begin to seem 
sentient -- that they will "claim to be conscious." And by the end of 
the century, he writes, there will no longer be "any clear 
distinction between humans and computers."

I find his scenario altogether plausible. And as it unfolds, I am 
certain that this astonishing new circumstance -- machines that 
think, machines that feel -- will provoke political and religious 
struggles at least as profound and ferocious as the earlier wars over 
Christianity, huits 
Gandhi, too.>>

and its BJP???

mcapri