Thoughts on The Stupidity of Computers

Thoughts on The Stupidity of Computers

      Can a human be a computer? Can a computer be a human? Less than a century ago, I would have answered yes to both questions, as a “computer” was someone hired to compute or calculate things, such as the NASA scientists depicted in the movie Hidden Figures. Today, however, we consider computers to be electronic devices that store and process data. Though we define computers as non-human things, they are not as far removed from humans as we think. The intelligence of computers hinges on the information or instructions humans have created for them in order to execute various programs. In the article “The Stupidity of Computers,” writer David Auerbach walks the reader through the evolution of computer’s shortcomings and strengths through looking at the history of search engines, online retailers, and social media and dating platforms. Though these programs have never been better at finding answers to our questions, determining what products we desire, and connecting us with friends, events and future partners respectively, computers have a long way to go in truly "understanding" what humans think and feel. Auerbach argues that the only way to raise the bar of a computer’s "intelligence", or ability to read our minds, is to eliminate as much ambiguity in computer algorithms as possible. To do so we must bring ourselves to them and share with them as much information (data and its meaning to us) that computers can “understand.” However, Auerbach urges us to be cautious with metadata, as this information has the potential to influence not only what we research, what we buy, and who we connect with, but also how we perceive our own identity.

     Before search engines, the internet was a collection of File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites, or web servers. Users would have to sift through the internet to find specific files. The goal of early search engines, such as Lycos, AltaVista and Yahoo was to better help users find and navigate through FTPs. In the 1990s, search engines goal evolved to not only better organize web servers, but to also try and answer questions humans had. This was experimented on with Ask Jeeves, where users were encouraged to type in questions as if they were asking the same question to a human in casual conversation. For example, one might ask “What restaurant has the best food near me?” Unfortunately, phrasing questions this way only went so far in delivering promising answers, as the program only recognized patterns that had been hand-coded. Search engines did not have the ability to read people’s minds. In this case, a search engine would not be able to know if you preferred more casual or high-end restaurants, ethnic or American cuisine, or what distance “near” meant to you from your location. The ambiguity in a question or sentence’s syntax and semantics led users to answers that may or may not have been helpful. The complexity of understanding human language was a barrier in search engines until Google discovered that a better form of delivering desirable results/answers was through ranking links’ importance. They discovered that by analyzing the topology of how pages link to other pages, a computer could determine the most ‘relevant’ or ‘interesting’ link, without having to rely on semantic language at all.

     Information technology has followed the trend of non-semantic analysis and has coupled it with collecting an incredible amount of actual human intelligence. This collection of metadata is seen on informational platforms such as Wikipedia, online retailers such as Amazon, social media platforms such as Facebook, and online dating sites such as OkCupid. The brilliance in this trend is that humans are responsible for the contribution and organization of data, which naturally dictates what information is useful and significant to them. In Wikipedia, we see not only the contribution of information but an editing and source checking for credibility. When purchasing items on Amazon, two things contribute to its web dominance for online shopping. Not only does the semantic information provided by product manufacturers help categorize goods, but consumers search histories, purchase histories and personal data such as age, gender and marital status all help Amazon make an educated guess what their customers might like to purchase in the future. Facebook has taken human data gathering a step further, perhaps a step too far. Users readily provide personal information such as education, relationship status, gender, artistic and political interest, all contributing towards defining their “self.” The social and viral aspect of Facebook as well as the golden chest of information users provide about themselves has led to scandalous marketing strategies that many users say are an invasion of their privacy. OkCupid gathers even more personal human information, allowing users to create their own questions to better understand their future matches’ personalities better.

     Computers measure and decipher information embedded in millions of binary codes gathered from people and places over time. This information not only encompasses raw data, or semantic truths, but also meaning and context humans attach to such data. As such, computers and their programs have never been better at providing us with information or predicting what information we would like to receive. As we store more and more of our personal lives online, there are inevitable consequences to how we move and behave in the world. Humans gravitate towards categories to understand the world and ourselves. Auerbach argues that the ontologies humans have created online will make us conform to set “identities.” For example, though I may believe the experiences in my life, such as my childhood, upbringing, education, work and extracurricular activities are what define who I am today, my online contribution and online experience is also contributing to my idea of ‘self.’ Who is to say that my perception of who I am is not also influenced by what I research online, such as what it means to be a Sagittarius or a Millennial. As forensic cyberpsychologist Dr. Mary Aiken states in the article "How is the internet changing the way we behave?," our time online is shaping not only our development and behavior but also societal norms and our perception of the world. Though computers are non-human things, our personal computers and phones may very well be the closest representation of “who we are” today.


Auerbach, D. (2012) The stupidity of computers. Machine Politics.13. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-13/

Aiken. M. (2017). How is the internet changing the way we behave. Everyday Science.  https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-is-the-internet-changing-the-way-we-behave/