Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
Interpretation
Computers, when properly programmed, operate with complete honesty and consistency, lacking human flaws.
Isaac Asimov's quote highlights a fundamental characteristic of computers: their ability to function with pure logic and honesty once they have been programmed correctly. Unlike humans, who can be influenced by emotions and biases, computers perform tasks based solely on the instructions given to them, presenting a kind of inhumanity that is devoid of deception but can also lead to unintended consequences if not carefully managed.
In practice
In a tech conference discussing the implications of artificial intelligence.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
Internet-centric companies have already begun changing the rules with binge-watching, flexible running times, fewer commercials, and crowd-sourced content. The brainpower - and just plain power - of the most valued tech firms will change things even more.
We've been merging with tools since the beginning of human evolution, and arguably, that's one of the things that makes us human beings.
What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web β¦ Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring.
The Internet allows the small guy a global marketplace. But technology is harmful in the sense that we get too much information from it. Because of the web we get 10 times the amount of noise we ever got, which makes harmful fallacies far more likely.
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration".
The hardest thing is trying not to correct everything on the Internet. It'd be night and day - wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. So you just have to say, All right, I'll take it, bring it on.
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