Do computers have the capability of being smarter than human beings? Starting in January of this year, a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has been making improvements on a computer system that can learn as well and as fast as a human. The Never-Ending Language Learning system, NELL, scans hundreds of millions of websites for text patterns to learn facts.[1] This intelligent system can also put relationships between different things together. It would be able to tell you that the New York Mets is a baseball team and that David Wright is one their players. Unlike other supercomputers, NELL is constantly learning new things. If this Never-Ending Language Learning system continues to develop and gain more knowledge, will NELL surpass human intelligence?
Human beings are constantly learning from day one. As a baby, we are curious to see how people react to certain things, how an object feels, what something tastes and smells like, and how to act properly in front of other people. As people, we learn something new everyday whether it is in the classroom, on the sports field, around the city, or even talking to friends. We learn by communicating with others, through other peoples’ reactions, and through our own experiences.
NELL, along with every other supercomputer, will never be as intelligent as a human being. Supercomputers have mass amounts of knowledge. NELL, for example, runs twenty – four hours a day, seven days a week calculating new information. It sits in a basement at the University of Pittsburgh finding out facts about everything that is going on in the world.[2] Supercomputers, however, will only ever know facts and literal definitions. It only knows what things are in their original context. NELL could tell you the definition of probably every word in the dictionary, but it can only tell you what it means. Humans mostly learn from experience. NELL, for example, can tell you that anger is an emotion and it happens when a person is mad at someone, but you never really know what something is until you can experience it or feel it. Also, many words have more than one meaning. Take the word cookie. It can mean a baked good or it can mean a virus on a computer. Because the word cookie has multiple meanings, NELL only knows the definition that is most popular where as a human would know that the word cookie has multiple meanings.
Technology is constantly changing and keeps getting better and better, but it will never be able to beat out human intelligence. Humans learn out of curiosity and experience. A supercomputer is am extremely knowledgeable device that contains mass amounts of facts. It is book smart and probably contains more factual based knowledge than a human being. It will only ever be able to do things like list every sports team, what city their from, and the players on each team. NELL, however, will never have common sense. It will never be able to experience the excitement of winning a championship game or the memories you create with your friends in college because the world is our classroom. Human beings will constantly be learning new things. This is why human beings will always be more intelligent than a supercomputer.
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