Editorial: Don’t let silicon get under your skin

As the specter of cold, sleet and Poe-esque gloom descends again upon our humble little city,… As the specter of cold, sleet and Poe-esque gloom descends again upon our humble little city, driving Pitt students indoors, Mother Nature almost seems to have granted us a chance to reflect. And especially as an IBM computer just obliterated Pittsburgh college students — our “best and brightest” — in a test of wits, “now” somehow seems not soon enough to find meaning in this turbulent world.

Six students, teams of three from Pitt and three from Carnegie Mellon, attempted to engage in a game show with “Watson,” the IBM computer now famous for trouncing two of humankind’s most accomplished “Jeopardy” champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, at their own game. Although, the cash was pretend in the Pittsburgh version, that doesn’t mean the student contenders symbolically fared any better — Watson took $52,199, while leaving only change for the humans: $12,937 for Pitt and $7,463 for CMU.

Stuck with a fixed amount of neural hardware that dates back to the era of cavemen, facing a competitor with intelligence of infinite flexibility and capacity to grow — i.e., AI technology, Watson’s future descendents, etc. – can strike as a bit unsettling. Certainly, one CMU student agreed – “Not cool,” said Will Zhang, 20-year-old leader of the CMU team, after being asked how his team was feeling, according to the Associated Press.

But while Pitt students watch computers not only decimate us in trivia, but also start taking over formerly human-held jobs — like legal analysis and patient diagnosis — we must actively work to boost our collective mood. As a start, if you ignore our loss to Watson, we did beat CMU in an intellectual competition.

And especially now, this is a crucial, and a more generally applicable, point to internalize — not the triumph at defeating our brainy neighbors, but how at times that seem primed to depress, we need to pick from our environment what makes us happy and press on with our lives.

Look at your RSS feed today and find stories abuzz with conflict, from the leaking nuclear reactors of Japan to the protester-strewn Pennsylvania State Capitol. Or look outside and view a pathetic excuse for a Pittsburgh springtime. Or look at the calendar and realize that whereas summer has made it onto the horizon, finals are offensively obscuring the view.

But before you let all of this deflate your ambitions, take solace in the fact that human domination of the earth still has at least a few more years on its lease.