From: Sabine Atkins (sabine@posthuman.com)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 18:22:48 MDT
Thanks for sending the translation, Ben.
I'm a German now living in the US, and I asked the people here to send me an email offlist if they'd
like to have a translation of the DFKI press release. I first didn't want to send my translation to the list
since Eliezer asked for not forwarding the whole article. But since the translation which was forwarded,
IMHO, is too bad I'm sending here my translation. I'm aware it's not perfect but it's better than babelfish.
What is especially interesting for me is how a professor for German Language and Culture of the Middle Ages
becomes an AI expert. Maybe I'm just missing something here... ;-)
==============================================================================================
Press Release - German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence
Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken, 03/15/2002
future talk with Professor Wahlster - CeBIT 2002
On the "future talk"-forum during the CeBIT 2002, Professor Wahlster, director of the German Research Center
for Artificial Intelligence, discussed with Professor Weizenbaum and Eckhard Freise, professor for German
Language and Culture of the Middle Ages and first winner of millions in the [German edition of the] Guenther
Jauch show "Who wants to be a Millionaire?".
The computer magazine CHIP invited these three scientists, who know the AI field very well, to an expert discussion
about Artificial Intelligence. Editor in chief, Thomas Pyczak, moderated this talk.
Professor Weizenbaum, who received public attention with the already in 1967 developed chatterbot Eliza, today
is among the critical observers of AI research. Eliza, a program which gave psychotherapeutic answers seemingly
coming from a human, was considered to be a useful tool for psychotherapy by experts. Because of this Professor
Weizenbaum pondered about the impacts on society AI would have.
According to Weizenbaum, computers will never be able to understand all levels and possible meanings of a spoken
expression. For Professor Wahlster the goals of machine translation lies somewhere else: Not the translation of a
lyric speech is the goal but the support for humans in everyday situations, i.e. understanding sentences spoken in
a foreign language. Sentences that refer to a clearly defined goal like scheduling a date or booking a trip.
The creation of an almighty computer world, says Professor Freise, will fail, not only because we are limited in
simulation the entire human knowledge of the world but also because of the resistance in humans themselves:
"That my refridgerator is more intelligent than me - this is one of the deepest fears."
In his concluding statement, Professor Wahlster summarized the perspectives of the recent AI research:
"We do not want to create a Homunculus. The basic intelligence of humans - which has nothing to do with the
academic intelligence - can not be created in a computer."
The creation of an artificial mind neither makes sense nor is worth trying to achieve. Instead there will be AI systems
which will be in our everyday lives as user friendly and robust as television sets.
For further information visit these links:
http://www.dfki.de/cebit2002 oder http://www.dfki.de/zukunftspreis
contact:
Reinhard Karger, M.A., Leiter Unternehmenskommunikation
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI) GmbH
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, Geb. 43.8
D- 66123 Saarbrücken
Tel.: 0681 302 5253
mobil: 0177/2422118
Fax: 0681 302 5341
E-Mail: karger@dfki.de
Internet: http://www.dfki.de
--
Sabine Atkins,
http://www.posthuman.com/
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