Star Trek Got it Right on Computers

Posted 18 Jun 2004 at 19:11 UTC by steve

Star Trek may be overly optimistic on FTL drive for starships and matter transmission but, according to a new Minneapolis Star Tribune article by Isaac Cheifetz, it was right on target with computer technology. Even 350 years in the future of ST:TNG, computers barely manage to answer well-phrased questions posed by humans, they never ask the questions. The artificially intelligent android, Mr. Data, is one-of-a-kind and not understood by Star Fleet AI experts. Even Data's creator didn't fully understand AI - Data's "brother", Lor, turned out as a psychopathic killer robot. On the other hand, computer databases connect to each other seamlessly "both at the technical level, and semantically", allow computer users to instantly download data from computers found on alien starships or left behind by ancient civilizations.