Man vs. Machine

Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Ali Eslami (poker pros) recently took on a sophisticated poker software program in an interesting test match.

You can read the article here.

The poker pros managed to eek out a slim victory this time around, but everyone seems to think the time is coming when computer programs will be able to consistenly “outsmart” us humans.

The point of the excercise was to create more intellegent software that could aid the human thought process in the future but at what cost?

Eslami says, “Artificial adaptive behavior could lead to software that better understands the way humans think … instead of being competitive and trying to oppose the person’s next move, being cooperative and trying to help the person’s next move.”

Computer scientist Jonathan Schaeffer compares playing poker with real life decisions such as deciding on stocks to purchase or buying a used car as they all deal with making decisions with incomplete information. He adds, “What you’re doing is, you’re playing a game of poker, next-generation software could help humans play those real-life games better and, one can hope, more fairly.”

I can envision a time in the not so distant future when all our difficult decisions can be input into a program which will spit out the optimal answer in a matter of seconds.

What amount of control is too much to relinquish to a computer program? Should our ability to reason and think things through be turned over to a computer? What effect, if any, does this progress have on the economy, on the job market (i.e. the more work machines can do, the less laborers are needed)? Does faith then take a back seat to optimal reason?

I find this facinating and bit scary at the same time.