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ChronoPsyche t1_izugiu1 wrote

Reply to comment by TopicRepulsive7936 in AGI will not precede Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) - They will arrive simultaneously by __ingeniare__

You could learn a few things from this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect#:~:text=The%20Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger%20effect%20is,overestimate%20their%20ability%20or%20knowledge.

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TopicRepulsive7936 t1_izuiihp wrote

Thinking should go back to very basics. To childish things even, just to be very clear.

Q: Why do we use computers in the first place?

A: Computers have some weird qualities.

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ChronoPsyche t1_izukaf2 wrote

I'm not sure how that is relevant at all to what I'm saying.

The technological singularity is a hypothetical future event that by its very nature is very difficult to predict. Anyone acting like they know exactly what's going to happen and thinks everyone else is stupid for not agreeing is speaking from a place of ignorance.

The smartest AI researchers and thinkers who are actually involved in advancing this technology are the ones speaking with the most uncertainty and restraint when making predictions. So I would advise you to keep that in mind before saying things like this:

>Pretty pathetic that this needs to be explained. We are dealing with some solid skulled individuals.

There is a lot we don't know about what will happen. Nobody knows everything, including the experts, so try to be a little less certain of your opinions and a little less hostile to other's opinions. Keep an open mind. Maybe you'll learn something.

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TopicRepulsive7936 t1_izumahm wrote

Back to basics. Why do we have computers? Could you please answer me this.

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ChronoPsyche t1_izuor6o wrote

That's completely irrelevant to the point I was making. Feel free to engage with what I was saying or make whatever point you are trying to make directly.

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TopicRepulsive7936 t1_izup7zn wrote

I want you to think.

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ChronoPsyche t1_izuuwkq wrote

I'll entertain this rhetorical game you are playing but I will mention that it's generally frowned upon to not engage with the conversation at hand.

Why do we have computers? We have computers because Alan Turing wanted to answer the question presented in Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem of whether or not there exists any statements made within a formal system of logic that cannot be proven either true or false by that system. In other words, he was trying to answer the famous question of "is Mathematics decidable"?

So Alan Turing created the concept of a Turing Machine, a theoretical device that used algorithms that could compute any problem that was decidable. He then formulated a proof that showed that there is a problem that cannot be proven as true or false by a Turing Machine, a problem called "the Halting Problem".

The halting problem is simply a question of whether or not there is an algorithm that can be run on a Turing Machine that can determine with certainty whether or not a given program would run forever or eventually reach an answer, no matter how long it may take.

Alan Turing proved mathematically that a Turing Machine would be unable to definitively answer such a question in every single scenario, and thus, proved (a proof by contradiction) that mathematics as a system of formal logic was undecidable. In other words, there are some statements made within a formal system of logic that cannot be proven true or false by that system. Usually these are problems that have to do with self-reference.

So in the process of formulating this proof, Alan Turing essentially and accidentally invented the theoretical foundation of computer science.

TL;DR

So to answer your question, we have computers because an English scientist accidentally invented the theoretical foundation of computer science while trying to answer a question about mathematics.

The second reason we have computers is because of World War 2. Much of Alan Turing's research was funded by the British government in their effort to decipher the German Enigma Machine. That research directly led to the invention of the first actual Turing-Complete computer, known as Eniac in 1945, which itself was developed for the United States Army to calculate artillery tables, and then used in the development of the first nuclear bomb to speed up calculations which were previously being done by hand.

If you want an oversimplified answer, computers were invented to help us perform calculations faster.

How any of this is relevant to my initial comment, I still do not know.

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