Sir, – I was dismayed when reading Frank McNally’s Irishman’s Diary (March 31st) that he seems to perceive computers as some form of alien species that are attempting to knock humans off their perch as the highest life form in the universe.
Does he not realise that any achievement of a computer is the result of human ingenuity? The crossword puzzle competition in New York in which Dr Fell, the computer designed by Matthew Ginsberg, attempted to beat the human competition, was in fact a competition between humans, namely Ginsberg, with his ingenuity in writing code, against the rest of the field. The fact that the computer came 141st in the competition was not a “resounding victory for humanity” as Mr McNally stated. Humans were on both sides of the competition! The result merely showed that Dr Ginsberg had some more work to do.
Mr McNally is not alone in his seeming paranoia towards technology and the false perception of the machine being somehow anti- human and a threat. I hear it a lot on my visits home among some people of my age – the attitude that technology is somehow beneath them, something only shallow people indulge in. In this year of Dublin, City of Science, can we not finally celebrate the work of scientists and engineers, and just enjoy the wonders of this universe that they discover, and the technologies that they invent as human achievements, and not always see them as somehow a threat to our humanity?
Dr Fill’s “defeat” in New York is but merely another lesson on the road as we unravel how the mind works, an exciting journey for inquiring, creative, and very human, minds. – Yours, etc,