Yesterday, Apple co-founder, occasional Cult of Mac commenter and just all-around huggable bear Steve Wozniak was awarded an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in Montreal, and as he has been wont to do quite a bit recently, he used his acceptance speech as an opportunity to talk about super-intelligent robots, futuristic androids and the ever present danger of machines enslaving humans.
He’s right, of course, when he says that robotics are the future, but the way he has chosen to phrase this particular idea over the past past month has been just so idiosyncratically charming. We love you, Woz!
[via MacTrast]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
44 responses to “Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak: “The Androids Have Already Won!” [Video]”
“and as he has been wont to do quite a bit recently”
The proofreading around here lately has been horrid!
a computer that can make a decision with a motive and the ability to lie – wen this happens we’re gonna be in the poop.
Humans are already willfully enslaved by machines. Technology is supposed to make life easier yet all I see are people having to update their blog, check updates on Facebook, post to Twitter, show where they are on Foursquare, constantly checking emails and SMS and being on call 24/7 for any work-related duties. Sometimes I feel like Snake Plissken and just want to pull the plug on the whole damn thing.
I can’t see anything wrong with that sentence. Can you help me out?
I re-read that statement about 4 times trying to see if there was a pun or a joke I was missing. But no, just horrible editing.
They don’t understand what the word “wont” means and have assumed it’s a typo.
No wonder obesity rates are skyrocketing, and will continue to take to the air… Those engineers are making it way too easy for us :P.
Nothing wrong with it :).
I see no error either. techloop needs a dictionary.
A good start on pulling the plug would be not ranting about it on the internet… just sayin’…
It’s it amazing how the grammar and spelling police on blogs are some of the biggest offenders? How hard would it have been to Google the word since you know… they were already pissing away time on the internet anyway…
If I feel like replying then I do. My devices work for me and not the other way around.
So you are one of those “As long as you use it the way I do it’s fine” guys then? Because checking FB, SMS, and work related emails is stupid and not as necessary as surfing tech blogs. :-/
Many peoples devices work for them as well, doing a lot of productive tasks on FB, Twitter, SMS and eMail. Try not being so self righteous in the future.
IMO Woz is starting to get really embarrassing.
The whole “Futuristic intelligent robots that enslave mankind” is not only an unrealistic juvenile fantasy, it’s a severely *dated* one, that makes him look like he’s stuck in the early 90’s or something.
Anyone who knows much about AI knows that this will never happen and that the type of independent machine thinking required is virtually impossible from a scientific standpoint. Penrose ran a steak through the heart of AI years ago although no one seems to have noticed much.
Everyone has the right to their opinion, but he just looks like a dumbass just saying this stuff in public so much. Go back to your cushy mansion and watch Star Wars on the big screen again Woz. Please.
No, you just don’t understand the English language. There is nothing wrong with that sentence at all. Try a dictionary. And now I’m annoyed because I took time to respond to the semi-literate instead of thinking about Woz. Ugh.
Machines may not be taking over the world intelligently but they sure are leaving an ever-widening footprint in the workforce of more and more industries.
“but the way he has chosen tophrase this particular idea over the past past month has been just so idiosyncratically charming” <– so what about this sentence? Is everything alright with this also? TOPHRASE is not one word it’s two words TO PHRASE, and kindly explain why the past month must be mentioned twice “past past month”? These people are right “the proofreading around here lately has been horrid!” I concur!
Gotta Proof read…we’re taught to in middle school. “but the way he has chosen tophrase” & “over the past past month has been” might want to fix those. Otherwise, Woz Rules!
Champ, this is a blog, things are written and posted in real time, there are no dedicated, full-time copy editors around here like the New York Times. Why don’t you stick your warrantless indignation and instead just write us and politely raise our attention to specific errors: we’re happy to fix, and are grateful for the corrections. But if you think that typos and typing mistakes aren’t a completely unavoidable way of life when you’re publishing between five and ten thousand words of content a day in real time without the copy editing resources of a major newspaper or magazine to back you up, think again.
You really don’t know much. Penrose did not disprove AI in the slightest, nor did he even try to.
Reading material for you: http://hanson.gmu.edu/penrose….
Extract: Martin Gardner calls Penrose’s book “the most powerful attack yet written on strong AI.” If so, AI must be doing pretty well. If the book were condensed to a paper by deleting the excellent tutorials, and if Penrose’s name weren’t on it, I doubt if the paper would have been much noticed, or even published. Regardless of your opinions about the appropriateness of current AI research strategies, or about the length of the road ahead, Penrose’s book offers no substantial reasons to change your views about the long-term possibility of computer-based AI. The fact that many casual observers have been misled about this is yet another indication of the inadequacy of our current methods of forming and communicating scientific consensus.
Headline is misleading, by capitalizing everything in the quote you make it look like he’s talking about Google’s phone OS.
Shouldn’t he have gotten his free degree from the business school. He has convinced his fan boys to pay twice what things are worth for years now.