6/21 Chp. 47-49

Chapter 47 discusses virtual realty. It is important to note that VR seems realistic because it allows for interactivity and therefore a sense of personal involvement. Furthermore the chapter talks about certain VR games that feature real money to be able to purchase virtual commodities or services. When reading this, the Sims social, a Facebook game came to mind. The Sims social allows you to use real money and convert it into Sim money in order to buy certain virtual items or get to the next level. Chapter 48 discuses the role of the robot. Robots have impacted old media by their ability to be programmed to play soccer, sumo wrestling, navigate around furniture in order to clean and even be part of space exploration. What I found most interesting about the Robots is that some robots are able to be part of invasive surgical procedures. Robots have the ability to do so many things that are crucial in human life. For an example, some robots have the ability to translate languages, read emails out loud and even summarize a paragraph. These “bots” help simplify thing needed in everyday life. Chapter 49 discusses weak AI and strong AI. Weak AI would be the lowly calculator or a system programmed by someone to make inferences for a given set of data. Strong AI would be a computer capable of developing intelligence that humans do not have. The author argues that this is a fantasy because “computers are only extensions of our own intelligence (323).” Lastly, the author talks about AI and its ability to help explore the web. I found it interesting that the website StumbleUpon is a helpful resource to retrieve useful information from the web since it is filtered by people and the machine.