The History and Future of Computers

The History and Future of Computers
By Danny Trevorrow

John Von Neumann was the first to make a computer.  The computer he made used giant vaccume tubes to do calculations for bombs.  Before he worked on the computer, John Von Neuman worked with Stanislaw Ulam and Richard Feynman on the Manhattan Project.  They developed the first nuclear bomb.  But in 1946, John Von Neumann said, “I am thinking about something much more important than bombs.  I am thinking about computers.” 1  

I am thinking about computers, too.  What can computers do in the future?  What should they be able to do?  What do we need them to do?  I think that “eye typing” would be an excellent addition to the computer.  You could have a scanner in the buttons on the keyboard that would recognize your gaze.  The computer would be programmed to recognize your wink and then the letter would be typed.

On May 3, 1953, Nils Beracielli, who worked with John Von Neumann at Princeton thought about artificial intelligence (AI) for the first time.  Beracielli’s programs were life-like but not actually alive.  If he would have kept the programs running for two generations it might have actually become alive and computers might take over the world. 1

I do not want AI in the form of robots or really any AI  to take over the world. AI could just keep on building on and on.  A year for humans would be a day for AIs and a year for AIs would be like a century for humans.  The AIs would just keep building and they would probably kill humans just like the Terminator in the movie Terminator.

In 1976, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs worked together to make Apple 1 which was the first personal computer.  Now in 2016, Apple 1 has become the iMac and there are also many generations of iPhones.  Computers evolve over time and huge changes can occur in a year. 2

In 3016, what will computers become? “The technological singularity is the hypothetical advent of artificial general intelligence (also known as "strong AI"). 3 Such a computer, computer network, or robot would theoretically be capable of recursive self-improvement (redesigning itself), or of designing and building computers or robots better than itself.” This is exactly what I do not want to happen.  I am concerned that AIs could led to the end of the world for humans.



Sources
Uploaded on Jun 23, 2008 http://www.ted.com Historian George Dyson, The History of the computer
Scholastic: Storyworks April/May 2016 Meet the iPhone’s Grandpa



Accessed September 22, 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularit