Holeton, Composing Cyberspace

Charles Platt,
"What’s It Mean to Be Human, Anyway?"

Charles Platt (b. 1945) is an author and journalist, editor, graphics artist, and founder of CryoCare Foundation, a cryonics organization. His many books include the science fiction novels The Silicon Man (Bantam, 1991) and Protektor (Avon, 1996); his most recent work is the nonfiction Anarchy Online: A Guide to Rational Choices in Cyberspace (HarperPrism, 1997). Platt also teaches computer graphics courses in New York and writes articles for magazines such as Omni, Harper’s Bazaar, and Fantasty and Science Fiction. He wrote the following article in 1995 as a contributing writer for Wired, a magazine aimed at people interested in emerging electronic technologies.

Charles Platt’s home page

"What’s It Mean to Be Human, Anyway?" text

1. Platt "raises some weird questions" in ¶ 11: "I am human, so why should I need to fake it? Is it possible for me to seem more human than I really am? And if so, what’s the best strategy?" What answers to these questions do you think are offered in Platt’s article?

2. What’s your own reaction to the Turing test or the Loebner contest as measures of intelligence? To what extent do these tests capture what you conceive as making up your intelligence?

3. After reviewing the humorous transcripts that Platt provides of human-computer program conversations, pick a topic with which you’re familiar and devise some questions you might use in your own, similar contest. With a partner or small group, try role-playing both the human and the computer responses to your questions; write out a sample dialogue (using computers, you can record an electronic transcript of your conversation). Compare your results with those of classmates or other readers. What characteristics do you find in common among the "human" and "machine" responses that people created?

Chapter 1 index || Forward Thinking || Research Links || More Online Readings & Resources |