The Inquest :: essays research papers

Credibility and Conflict in Lems The InquestThe year is 2029, and machines will convert us that they are conscious and that they produce their own agenda worthy of our respect. They will embody human qualities claim to be humanand well believe them.- electron beam KurzweilPerhaps Kurzweil slipped up when he put a date in his prediction. Perhaps he intended it to be more of a challenge than a guess. Ultimately, it separates the theorists, like Kurzweil, from the stagetellers, like Stanislaw Lem. Lems The Inquest takes a glimpse into the future to show readers what it may look like some day. He uses a futurist setting to examine the possible role of machines in our daily lives. Conflict, credulity and human nature are at the forefront of this story, all of which allude to deeper kernel in todays world.The train of robotics and AI in Lems The Inquest is not farfetched. That is to say, the story is not unconvincing, but simply exaggerated for our time. though the events are assumed to be taking place in the future, Lem references no time period and forces the reader to blindly suspend disbelief. The premise of the story revolves around this fact, and gives the story its body as a work of science fiction.The most relevant instance of computer exaggeration is in the supporting characters we happen the non-linear officers of the Goliath. The main character, Commander Pirx, is known to be human, and must command a mixed group of humans and robots, not knowing the true identity of each. hither we have the storys biggest assumption about AI in the future that robotics and AI will be indistinguishable from human abilities and intelligence. This colossal deduction about computer technology is only acceptable to the reader when coupled with the lack of a given time period. Pirx is asked to command these two groups on a routine space mission, all the while making inference on their actions and interactions during a variety of real world tests. He is then to make a fo rmal report to the creators of these machines to be used as a formal test result. The fact that Pirx cannot immediately distinguish between the humans and the robots implies that all the machines have passed the Turing test. Though this story is set in the future, this test is a standard by which we judge the intelligence of machines today, and gives us some insight on the level of AI that Lem implies.