> It just makes me question humans' intelligence if anything.
A more serious byproduct of the tendency to talk about machines in anthropomorphic terms is the companion phenomenon of talking about people in mechanistic terminology. The critical reading of articles about computer-assisted learning —excuse me: CAL for the intimi— leaves you no option: in the eyes of their authors, the educational process is simply reduced to a caricature, something like the building up of conditional reflexes. For those educationists, Pavlov’s dog adequately captures the essence of Mankind —while I can assure you, from intimate observations, that it only captures a minute fraction of what is involved in being a dog.
A more serious byproduct of the tendency to talk about machines in anthropomorphic terms is the companion phenomenon of talking about people in mechanistic terminology. The critical reading of articles about computer-assisted learning —excuse me: CAL for the intimi— leaves you no option: in the eyes of their authors, the educational process is simply reduced to a caricature, something like the building up of conditional reflexes. For those educationists, Pavlov’s dog adequately captures the essence of Mankind —while I can assure you, from intimate observations, that it only captures a minute fraction of what is involved in being a dog.
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD09xx/E...