Computers have no feelings and human intuition will trump AI, says Apple Co-founder and tech entrepreneur Steve Wozniak

Beating someone at a game of chess is not real intelligence, says the storied Co-founder of Apple Computers, Steve Wozniak. Credited with designing the first among personal computers and bringing out Apple I and Apple II, Wozniak is a firm believer in intuition and ‘feelings’ which have no match to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“There is no computer with AI saying what can I do to make the world a better place,” Wozniak told Shradha Sharma of YourStory at the ongoing TechSparks2021. He further added that it is time we stop thinking that AI can be used to build complete solutions — at best, it can enhance features or safety concerns.

The technology entrepreneur and philanthropist who left Apple in 1985 continues to pursue new projects. He co-founded post-secondary education and training platform for software engineering and technology development Woz U in 2017, and more recently, blockchain-based energy-saving platform, Efforce. 

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Emerging technology

Speaking excitedly about a new idea to look at mapping space debris in the near-earth magnetic field, Wozniak says that there are a number of emerging technology solutions that he would have liked to work with if he were born in the 2000s. 

“I have a concern for how technology is used for making better, more secure processes, or working on the internet to make spam go away,” says Wozniak.

He added that Internet-of-Things, especially in a home environment, robotics, building processors, sensors and semiconductors out of different materials, quantum computing and battery technology are some of the other technology challenges which inspire him. 

“My whole life I have been thinking about comparing computers to the brain — if there is a way to build an electric brain..,” says Wozniak.

Wozniak also cheekily reminds us that the human brain was faster than the computer when it started out.

“The first ever problem we tried solving using my design of a personal computer was a chess problem — but we did not get an answer,” he said. 

Bringing us back to the message, that while a Google image search can identify a dog breed in seconds but does it really know what a dog is?

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