UNCANNY SKILL

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 12199, 10 March 1934, Page 9

UNCANNY SKILL

ITNKTNG MACHINES. Wl'lfll LITvICS; AND DISLIKES. .WORK ,1 X , PSYCHOLOGY. ~ . Tlip “thinking,; machine” exhibited-byuNor-mftii B, Krim, - of the Massa.pim'scftts;. Institute of Technology, before, a- - potion, o*: the'. American fnktitute of Electrical; Engin'ers . -.ftt' Cambridge, ! Alassacbusetts,- desqrvetl all -tthe: pub.Uc.ityl tiuii.-, • ]>;- . received,. write s i. AYnidemari ,Kftcsvnffcrb .in the •’New. York Times." . But to 'say tliat. iff is 1 tbo dirsb -a-ud . cniy e,ue .‘of its k l rid or that- it actually : !‘tiriu7vs, despite its'-uncanny' ’-ability to 'remeniber and’ forgeff and to express a; :<ol’t of-'electrical! •pleasure at'what iff likes' and -iff sort of halted to' wiiat it’dislikes, -is .simply to• abuse wbrd-s. ■

To tell jus;- what tbeu; Alleged thinking" machines ■ ere we must go back to Pavlov and lus ; conditioned reflexes. That grea t Russian ' smeii•fist put a tube into’ a dog's mouth to meastuj'e.the amount of saliva generated by .au attractive piece' ot meat, ’Tlte 'saliva fbnved not. because the dbg willed it, bbi; bee-apse,.mech-laiism' qver wh’c-h .be .apparently .bad no control made 'b' flow. Physiologists). 'anti /psychologists, there!ore speak of reflex -actions. , When, ft doctor Taps . the . nerve just below your knee and makes your lo.wei leg. kick,, be • calls reflex ••action -into play. . Thorp are other reflexes,- fitch as involuntar'ly swallowing and \vlnk-

But. all .these -arc unconditioned reflexes. Experience has a .great effect-upon .Them—’conditions’ -themPavlov decided that, ages ago. a; dog had to, have mea.t,. in Ids' mouth, before "saliva- began -to flow.- As a result !of iuh'orited experience a -signal ultimately -sufficed—the; "-Tuere sight of a morsel Tor example.

TAYLOVE WORK-; - On the of ill's supposition, Pavlov built up in a dog strange ./ehayioiir. M ill) disagreeable , aeicls be cultivated ro.spom es 0f.,. avoidance ;. w tb agreeabjo I md,. responses of attraction. . .M erely by mixing responses be, could reduce a dog to a. state of. nervous hysteria. Bromides- restored bun,' Re got idbgs to distinguish dearly between dr vies and ellipses., to rejoice in. the former and. to run away, in horror from the latter because of their as-

sociations. ... In all these cases- a message ft’orn

a sense organ -passes to a sensory centre of tbo hra'ri and thence to a motor centre by which a,n order D given to the salivary gland to secrete juice if eating i.s in question Conditioned reflexes of this kind are usually less powerful than the natural or unconditioned kind. The osscntial difference between the two ri the deliberate switching ci nerve impulses from a sensory to a motor centre.

Hundreds of experiments, have leu Pavlov to the conclusion.- that, different kinds or habits; based on training, discipline, and education ot any k’-nd, are nothing but a Jong chain of conditioned reflexes.' Associations once estnbli.-hcj become automatic and are persistently reproduced. '

If conditioned reflexes are indeed mechanical then it ought to be' -possible to construct a machine that will.-'reproduce them. -Reasoning thus, about a score-, of ipsyschologists and physicists have constructed extraordinary combination's of electric cells, lamp.'-; batteries and. switches that .behave in a very human way J however inhuman the models may look. Professor .Clark Iff TTnll, Yale, has done the most notable work-in this field. Dr. H. D. Bnernsteiu. R. G. Krueger, George K. Bennett, 'Thomas Rous, and Lewis B. AVard have followed in bis steps. Norman Krim is therefore but one of. a bright- band of kindred spirits.

CAN BE TAUGHT. - To describe these machines wit Flout the aid of a. technical diagram is' impossible. The reader must take the writer's word for it-that any of tlio dozen systems: developed eonduct themselves much I'ke Pavlov’s dog.' They can be “taught’’ to reari- to. signal, an external impulse. In fact, they have a. cni-ye of learning much like that of a Iranian. being, which means that every day in every way they get better arid better. Sonic not only learn but irradiate neighbouring sense organs and thus educate them. There is something much like forgetting, too. Iff is even possible to construct a machine which will thread a maze after making mistakes- and wTiTch exhibits likes and dislikes.

The experimenters in this fiokl hardly imagine that their niachines are exact duplicates .of the human thinking or reflex apparatus. They call them mechanical, electrical, or electro-chemical analogues depending on the construction of Tile machine. Yet those machines have their uses. They may be an aid in settling the old controversy between tlio vital* ist« andi the mechanists, the one ho* keying in isuch a- thing as -soul, spirit, mind consciousness that govern! human behaviour, and tlio other preaching that soul and spirit are' but mystical names for actions

that wo cannot a-s yet explain iueelmiiiciiby. To prove their point rum mechanist must bring forth, operative models that will adapt 'Aminvolves to a given set of cucmnstaucos—shrink from what they do »«e like, and behave just as «f 'they were tbinkrag organisms aware ot their environment. And Ult ’ s one objcqt Dr. Hull and bis co-workers have kept in view. Although reasoning by analogy is a deceptively bad form ci logic, tlibro can bo no doubt that I-hefio .collections of lamps, bai’rteno Wud switches' actually duplicate the me* qbanisms of fesponoe that differentiate - human beings from stones.. Dr. Hull, thinku that then; may be a practical. use. for. devices der-iig-ned to ' sclitlo the old controversy : between the vitalists and the mechanists. “It in no- inconceivable,” be r<iys, “that, in the demands fo>’ higher. niiid higbec degree of an romatici tv in maobin.es constancy being made by m’odoni industry, tbo ultraautomaticity' of the, type of mechanism here considered may have an important place,”- '