# @ Tuesday, December 14, 2004 1:20 PM

Good thoughts. I'm going to have to have a word with the question setter (hope they don't mind). I can see a scenario where a computer will "train" someone without actually telling them anything, in that people will often do things in a certain way because "That is the way that the computer does it". In this situation you could say that the computer has trained the user, in that they are doing things the way the computer requires.

RobMiles

# @ Tuesday, December 14, 2004 1:37 PM

Yup they can. First address the question of "Can you train yourself?". If I gave you 3 juggling balls and asked you to juggle them, you would initially be unable to do so. After a while (it took me about 6 hours) you'd be vaguely competant. Therefore you've trained yourself using the balls to juggle. Now apply the same logic to computers. The computer is essentially your juggling balls. If you want to practice heart surgery, a computer is a virtual reality that allows you to repeat the procedure 1,000 times. Or perhaps you want to practice landing a plane, or simplest of all, learn to type at 35wpm. A computer will allow you to learn these skills. Of course then there's the matter of "Is the computer training you, or are you training yourself?". If the computer was a person who explained how to catch the juggling balls, they would be training you, right? But they would just be an oracle, which is different to using a tool (unless the tool gives feedback on what you should do). So from this, some tools DO give you feedback. Are you doing something correctly? If you drop a ball on the floor, that is feedback you're doing it wrong. The second argument which stems from this is, is training simply improving your skills in an area, or gaining skills, or is it actually obtaining knowledge of how to do something /which you would otherwise have been unable to learn/. For example, training to be a fencer (of a certain discipline) would be impossible. You couldn't learn it just from having a rapier, you would have to actually obtain some knowledge of how to do it from another person. But does it have to be a person? The person's knowledge is simply stored in it's head, much like a computers. So while a trainer is more versatile in adapting training techniques, a computer is much the same. Which leads to the final argument, if you created a computer that on the surface mimicked the entire behaviour of a human, yet really just reacted to input using a very long and complicated piece of software, would learning from it be identical, and still 'training' in the sense of a true desire to impart knowlewdge (as DaveDowns put it)?

Pandilex

# @ Tuesday, December 14, 2004 3:11 PM

Can a cricket bat hit a ball? Not by itself it can't. The same is true of computers. I guess I object to the wording of the question. Can a computer be used to train a person? Yes. I've taken a number of computer driven courses and learned a good bit from them. But I do think that people generally do a better job.

AlfredTwo

# @ Tuesday, December 14, 2004 3:39 PM

Ha. Spoke to the lecturer on the course. Very nice chap. The context of the question relates to workplace training. In which case I think that it is reasonable to say that yes, they can be used to train. But, like Alfred, I reckong that a human will do it much better. A computer will only be able to cover the ground it has been programmed to. A person will be able to deliver the material in a richer manner, and provide much more flexibility.

RobMiles

< December 2004 >
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
28	29	30	1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31	1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8

Subscriptions

• RSS 2.0
• Atom 0.3