Machinery of the Mind: Inside the New Science of Artificial Intelligence

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Times Books, 1986 - Computers - 336 pages
Johnson gives a vivid account of how close scientists are to creating intelligent machinery, and the challenging barriers (both technical and philosophical) that have to be overcome. The author provides a firsthand look at machines that are beginning to understand English, discover scientific theories on their own, and create original works of art. He introduces Eurisko, the program that discovered for itself such fundamental concepts as numbers and arithmetic, and went on to become national champion of a futuristic war game called Traveller. Johnson describes Aaron, the artificially intelligent artist--the only computer program to have its own show at London's Tate Gallery. He shows how these programs work, and how this research is helping in understanding the workings of the human mental machinery. ISBN 0-8129-1229-2 : $19.95.

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Contents

Thinking Without a Brain
33
CHAPTER 3
57
CHAPTER 4
75
Copyright

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About the author (1986)

George Johnson was born in 1952, in Fayetteville, Ark. He has worked for newspapers in Albuquerque, N.Mex. and Minneapolis, Minn., and is a science writer for the New York Times. His first book, Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics (1984), won a special achievement award in nonfiction from the Los Angeles chapter of International PEN. Many of Johnson's other books evidence thoughtful, spiritual examinations of the relation between man and science. Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith and the Search for Order (1995) is about the diversity of ideas in New Mexico. Johnson draws parallels between Los Alamos and the worshipful view of scientific discovery and the high desert, a sacred place for the Tewa Indians and Hermanos Penitentes.

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