Do Compuhters Think?

Chuck: Uhmm, you spelled compuhters wrong.
Narrator: Oh, hey, you're right. That was on purpose? Yeah, that's it, on purpose. It's ironic - talking about stupid machines by misspelling a word.

Okay, I don't buy it either. Truth is, I spelled the word wrong entirely by accident. A fortuitous accident, though. Computers are dumb as a box of rocks. Silicon makes up a quarter of the earth's crust. That qualifies as a rock. Making your computer a box of rocks.

A computer does exactly what you tell it. Nothing more, and nothing less. It makes no judgment. Never considers alternatives. And could care less that you spent 6 weeks writing this term paper. The computer will happily delete it without a second thought.

See - even I anthropomorphise the box of rocks. And I know better. The computer is not out to get you. You won't make it angry. It doesn't get revenge. The computer is a thing - like a hammer or saw. It has no intelligence.

Now, programmers can tell your computer how to do amazing things. Hundreds of millions of instructions go into the word processor so you can write a letter to Aunt Polly. So how does the machine know to put a red squiggly under spelling mistakes? Because some programmer accounted for that. A human being saw the problem, devised instructions for solving that problem, and gave those instructions to your computer.

Fear is the Path to the Dark Side

All of this to say - don't be afraid. There's nothing magical about a computer. Sure, bad things can happen when you get careless. That's why my 7 year old daughter can't use my power saw. She might lose some fingers. When she's 16 though, I can teach her the dangers.

Learn the dangers. Study what you shouldn't do. Then you're free to do everything else. Once you understand the danger, you can use this tool without fear.