If Candido becomes a rider: an exclusive excerpt from the new book by Guido Maria Brera

THE MECHANICAL TURK

“In fact, I’ll tell you a story.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a mechanical Turk wrapped in

his turban that went far and wide for the immense kingdom

of the empress of Austria; he challenged chess and beat all the best

country players. This mechanical Turk was always

accompanied by his assistant, who magnified his prodigies and the

wonder, because this Turk was a very complex machine

and full of sophisticated gears, in an age of development

technology was still in its infancy. And his aide was actually

its brilliant inventor. “

Candide widens his eyes in raptures, after all these months

who took care of the perfect functioning of the city in the shade

of the very high towers, he has forgotten the power of

fantasy and imagination, and indulges in listening to the

story.

“It was an ingenious trick. The best and smartest machine

never built, and its inventor, a man born on

banks of the Danube, he was covered with all honors and his name

magnified in every corner of the reign of the Empress of Austria “

Garofalo continues. “His legend crossed borders and yes

extended to China and the Americas. Except that one day

a child, wrapped in his primal innocence, discovered

that the ploy actually concealed a scam. It was a deception

wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Inside the features

in fact, in its alleged gears,

a human being, as small as he was good, was hiding

in the game of chess. It was he who defeated all opponents.

The human. Not the car. “

“You see, dear Candido, the moral is this” he approaches smiling

Easter Monday, letting the silver bracelets jingle

adorn the wrists. “The car was not and never will be able

to carry out operations that are human, neither then nor today, has

always need a person who is hiding in his heart

and carries out the operations on its own. The same algorithm needs

of a continuous machine learning, of human beings that the

teach how to think.

“But isn’t the entire Voltaire system completely automated?”

Candido asks naively. “It is not for that

who manages to be so perfect? ​​”

“Despite the power of Voltaire and the use of processors

quantum, there are decisions that an algorithm is not yet

able to take on his own ”, Martino intervenes. “There are variables

unthinkable that must be entered daily

by someone in the flesh, then from there the algorithm is able

to continue, and as for those decisions, the time

later he will know how to do it himself. But not for the others. For now, dear

Candide, there are more things in heaven and on earth than the algorithm

can even just imagine. “

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