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Full Idea
If wonderful machines like Huygens's planetary clock can be made, it would take even more cogs and springs to make a speaking machine, which can no longer be considered impossible, particularly at the hands of a new Prometheus.
Clarification
Huygens was a great Dutch scientist. Prometheus gave divine knowledge to man.
Gist of Idea
With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible
Source
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.34)
Book Ref
La Mettrie,Julien Offray de: 'Machine Man and Other Writings', ed/tr. Thomson,Ann [CUP 1996], p.34
A Reaction
Compare Descartes in Idea 3614. The idea of artificial intelligence does not arise with the advent of computers; it follows naturally from the materialist view of the mind, along with a bit of ambition to build complex machines.
Related Idea
Idea 3614 A machine could speak in response to physical stimulus, but not hold a conversation [Descartes]
| 7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
| 8056 | AI can't predict innovation, or consequences, or external relations, or external events [MacIntyre] |
| 7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
| 12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
| 3135 | Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey] |
| 3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
| 3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
| 6655 | The 'Frame Problem' is how to program the appropriate application of general knowledge [Lowe] |
| 6657 | Computers can't be rational, because they lack motivation and curiosity [Lowe] |
| 23518 | Modern AI is mostly machine-based pattern recognition [Seth] |