Computers Are Stupid

Programmers often describe computers as "stupid."

When they say this, they (usually) aren't insulting computers. They are addressing an important point about how computers understand the instructions that human programmers give them.

In spoken languages, we can craft sentences with a great deal of ambiguity. Consider, for example, the sentence "Each of us saw her duck." Does that mean each of us saw her pet duck? Or did we each see her duck under something? Depending on the context, you might be able to infer which interpretation is correct.

Computers can't make these inferences and so they interpret language literally. Computer programming languages are designed to limit ambiguity, but sometimes this can result in issues between the programmer and the machine.

Keep this idea in mind as you watch the next video. Think about how sensitive computers are to typos and how small mistakes (mistakes that a "smart" human could easily correct) can lead to huge problems when given to a "stupid" computer.