Apple Co-Founder, Steve Wozniak gave a speech to Michigan State University graduates last week, warning that “Every time we invent a computer to do something else, it’s doing our work for us, making ourselves less relevant.”
“The cyborgs are winning! The androids are winning!”, he said, although he was not referring to Google’s Android mobile OS, as some readers may have expected.
Since the 1980's, Wozniak has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures and is now Chief Scientist for Fusion-IO, a provider of solid-state technology and high-performance I/O solutions.
A restless geek at heart, Woz doesn’t see this as a positive thing.
He went on to say, “How does a computer ever create art, for example, if it can’t sense things that a human understands, like the wind on a beach.”
“Well, our computers have gotten hearing and seeing, they’ve got feeling, touch sensitive; they can sense motion, just like our inner ear. Pretty soon we’re going to have holograms, which are much better than what you call 3D television.”
“We’ve created a new species; no question. We’re creators and, like I said, we’re making ourselves less relevant,” he said.
Weighing in on artificial intelligence, the Woz believes that it will become more and more like real people - “…like a friend you would want to go and meet,” he explained.
“Somebody that can talk to your face; somebody that can understand things [and] knows the kind of jokes you like; [somebody] that knows what sort of things to say depending on how slowly you’re talking then; a real person,” Wozniak elaborated.
He also explained to graduates that he has a formula for happiness, which goes like this: H = 3F -“Happiness equals food, friends, and fun”.
For fans of Wozniak, the Apple co-founder will be interviewed live on stage at the 48th Design Automation Conference (DAC) on a wide range of topics, including the ‘joy’ of engineering and following one’s passion to convert innovative ideas into reality.
