Introduction

1. What is most striking about the quotation that Halpern opens the article with? What
relevance does it have in relation to what we have been discussing in Harari?
2. Find an example of a definition. (p.1)

3. Why is the significance of the words only and all so important? (p.1)
Because it underlines the relation with the user who remains central in the
relationship between computers and people. It excludes the possibility that
computers could do something on their own. The responsibility lies on us. A
computer can never be responsible for what it does.
4. How does he argue that computers do not understand human language? (p.2 )
Computers can only translate with their own language. Human intervention is
essential.
5. What distinction does he make between AI software and “plain old applications”?
What point is he trying to make?
6. Why does Halpern quote Arthur C. Clarke and then give the “Halpern Corollary”?

PART 1: Only what we know how to order it to perform

1. Why does he compare computers and movies? Why does he compare a computer
and a hammer? (p.3)
To let the reader understand that computers are not more intelligent than humans or
other devices, they are just faster. He compares a computer to a movie because
movies are a sequence of images that the brain transforms into actions.
2. How does the human aptitude for storytelling influence our perception of computer
AI?And how do readers become co-conspirators? (p.3)
We tend to invest with personality and purpose everything and this influences the
perception of AI. The readers become co-conspirators because we tend to believe in
what editors write, we tend to give them credit for what they say about computers
and AI.
3. Ironically “we credit machines with thinking just when they are displaying
characteristics most unlike those of thinking beings.” What does he mean by this?
(p.4)
He means that computers do what we command and program them to do. They are
still seen as machines by humans, regardless their skills
4. The author then asks a rhetorical question, in which the answer is clearly “No”. Is it
effective? Persuasive? Why? (p.4)
Yes, it is persuasive because, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, computers
have some characteristics that thinking beings lack.
5. In what way does surprise at what computers can do endlessly generate paradoxes
and problems? (p.5)
He mentions some of the main challenges that chess players face in these
championships, which are the ability to concentrate, to memorize and to resist the
fatigue of setting for hours, and that computers have no problem with any of these
because they are thinking beings' qualities. In addition to this, the author mentions
that players depend on their ability to recognize general situations. Meanwhile, the
only thing computers do is to follow some algorithms.
6. In what way does surprise at what computers can endlessly generate paradoxes and
problems? (p.8)
 It’s a paradox because we’re always looking for new things to be surprised at and
what surprises us before it immediately becomes a habit. Surprises can mislead
people because it is related to something magic until we come up with an
explanation.
7. What’s the point of his example of the magician and the elephant? (p.8)
To clarify the fact that both the success and the failure of the magician can surprise
us. But we know that there is always a trick behind it, an explanation which
eliminates the magic.