Ex Machina

May 19, 2006


MareNostrum

The supercomputers I am showing here are powerful almost beyond human understanding. The can map every molecule of the billions on a human DNA string, scrutinize at the atomic level the collision between two pieces of plutonium in an exploding bomb; or sketch the gravitational pull of every star in the galaxy. There are not questions that humans could grapple with given plenty of time, a notebook and a sharp pencil. These computers are not amiable assistants they are distant and sinister; cold and inscrutable. They are omniscient and omnipresent and these are not qualities in which we find a simulacrum of ourselves – these are qualities that describe the Divine. The problem is not that these computers might one day resemble humans. It is that they already resemble gods.


Cray XT2


BlueGene/L


Apotheosis

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