Wel, I can think of a place where computers do matter, a lot. Working with the handicapped. Providing fully searchable audiobooks for the audiobooks for the blind (braille is good, amazing, and vital, but in college you literally can't carry by yourself braille editions of certain books. too bulky). Providing a way to communicate *at all* beyond twenty-questions level for someone who cannot speak and cannot write and cannot sign- but they can move a pointing device. Or they can move their eyes and the computer tracks them. Robots to help with household tasks (ok, they aren't as good *yet* as say. helper monkeys or assorted service dogs- but they don't throw feces when angry either.) And a hundred other uses. CS attempts at trying to progam AI's have led to new insights into the way autists percieve the world (and those who work with autists have been able to give the AI folks some pointers, too. it flows both ways... -example here; a computer can't tell a scream of joy from a scream of pain because it hasn't been programmed w/ facial expression recognition algorithms. So they study faces, and talk to high functioning autist who say things like "I watch the eyebrows and the mouth wrinkles and I've just memorized it, and the CS guy hmms and programs and comes back with "the way the eyes squinch up is important too...")
For those of "normal" abilities the computer is perhaps a fun but meaningless toy. We can certainly live without and have for hundreds of years. But for thousands who before computers were assumed to be mindless idiots because they couldn't communicate, they are vital...
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Date: 2003-06-02 12:10 pm (UTC)Robots to help with household tasks (ok, they aren't as good *yet* as say. helper monkeys or assorted service dogs- but they don't throw feces when angry either.)
And a hundred other uses.
CS attempts at trying to progam AI's have led to new insights into the way autists percieve the world (and those who work with autists have been able to give the AI folks some pointers, too. it flows both ways... -example here; a computer can't tell a scream of joy from a scream of pain because it hasn't been programmed w/ facial expression recognition algorithms. So they study faces, and talk to high functioning autist who say things like "I watch the eyebrows and the mouth wrinkles and I've just memorized it, and the CS guy hmms and programs and comes back with "the way the eyes squinch up is important too...")
For those of "normal" abilities the computer is perhaps a fun but meaningless toy. We can certainly live without and have for hundreds of years. But for thousands who before computers were assumed to be mindless idiots because they couldn't communicate, they are vital...