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Copyright © 2011 by Brian Christian All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.doubleday.com DOUBLEDAY and the DD colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Portions of this work were previously published in The Atlantic Grateful acknowledgment is made to Richard Wilbur for permission to reprint a portion of “The Beautiful Changes.” Jacket design by Tal Goretsky Jacket illustration by gears © Bettmann/CORBIS Head © istockphoto.com/Mark Strozier Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Christian, Brian, 1984– The most human human : what talking with computers teaches us about what it means to be alive / Brian Christian. p. cm. 1. Philosophical anthropology. 2. Human beings. 3. Turing test. I. Title. II. Title: What talking with computers teaches us about what it means to be alive. BD450.C5356 2011 128—dc22 2010048572 eISBN: 978-0-385-53307-2 v3.1
Today’s person spends way more time in front of screens. In fluorescent-lit rooms, in cubicles, being on one end or the other of an electronic data transfer. And what is it to be human and alive and exercise your humanity in that kind of exchange? –DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph 0. Prologue 1. Introduction: The Most Human Human 2. Authenticating 3. The Migratory Soul 4. Site-Specificity vs. Pure Technique 5. Getting Out of Book 6. The Anti-Expert 7. Barging In 8. The World’s Worst Deponent 9. Not Staying Intact 10. High Surprisal 11. Conclusion: The Most Human Human 12. Epilogue: The Unsung Beauty of the Glassware Cabinet Acknowledgments Notes
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it; As a mantis, arranged On a green leaf, grows Into it, makes the leaf leafier … –RICHARD WILBUR I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it. –ROBERT PIRSIG As President, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots, in case they try anything. –BARACK OBAMA
0. Prologue Claude Shannon, artificial intelligence pioneer and founder of information theory, met his wife, Mary Elizabeth, at work. This was Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the early 1940s. He was an engineer, working on wartime cryptography and signal transmission. She was a computer.
1. Introduction: The Most Human Human I wake up five thousand miles from home in a hotel room with no shower: for the first time in fifteen years, I take a bath. I eat, as is traditional, some slightly ominous-looking tomatoes, some baked beans, and four halves of white toast that come on a tiny metal rack, shelved vertically, like books. Then I step out into the salty air and walk the coastline of the country that invented my language, despite my not being able to understand a good portion of the signs I pass on my way—LET AGREED, one says, prominently, in large print, and it means nothing to me. I pause, and stare dumbly at the sea for a moment, parsing and reparsing the sign in my head. Normally these kinds of linguistic curiosities and cultural gaps interest and intrigue me; today, though, they are mostly a cause for concern. In the next two hours I will sit down at a computer and have a series of five-minute instant-message chats with several strangers. At the other end of these chats will be a psychologist, a linguist, a computer scientist, and the host of a popular British technology show. Together they form a judging panel, and my goal in these conversations is one of the strangest things I’ve ever been asked to do. I must convince them that I’m human. Fortunately, I am human; unfortunately, it’s not clear how much that will help. The Turing Test Each year, the artificial intelligence (AI) community convenes for the field’s most anticipated and controve