“NOVA Wonders: Can We Build a Brain?” Preview
How does today’s artificial intelligence actually work— and is it truly intelligent?
Premiering May 16, 2018 at 9/8c on PBS
Artificially intelligent machines are taking over. They’re influencing our everyday lives in profound and often invisible ways. They can read handwriting, interpret emotions, play games, and even act as personal assistants. They are in our phones, our cars, our doctors’ offices, our banks, our web searches…the list goes on and is rapidly growing ever longer. But how does today’s A.I. actually work—and is it truly intelligent? And for that matter, what is intelligence? The world’s brightest computer programmers are trying to build brighter machines by reverse-engineering the brain and by inventing completely new kinds of computers, with exponentially greater speed and processing power. “NOVA Wonders” looks at how far we’ve come and where machines are headed as their software becomes ever more…cerebral. How close are we from a world in which computers take over—from diagnosing cancer to driving our cars to targeting weapons? If we place more and more of our lives under the control of these artificial brains, what are we putting at risk?
NOVA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NOVAonline
NOVA on Twitter: @novapbs
NOVA on Instagram: @novapbs
@MichaelSHartman
March 10, 2026 at 2:08 am
If an sufficiently high intelligence can be created, will it be able to be President or run the Federal Reserve? Milton Friedman thought the latter, and the trend of presidents seems to make ther former attractive. A layman that thinks Climate Change is a hoax, wants to resurrect the coal industry and make people burn coal again, is ignorant of science, and thinks STEM is a waste of time would be a laughing stock.
Comments are closed.