Can Computer Think
Most people think computers will never be able to think. That is, really
think. Not now or ever. To be sure, most people also agree that computers
can do many things that a person would have to be thinking to do. Then
how could a machine seem to think but not actually think Well, setting
aside the question of what thinking actually is, I think that most of us
would answer that by saying that in these cases, what the computer is
doing is merely a superficial imitation of human intelligence. It has been
designed to obey certain simple commands, and then it has been provided
with programs composed of those commands. Because of this, the
computer has to obey those commands, but without any idea of whats
happening.
Indeed, when computers first appeared, most of their designers intended
them for nothing only to do huge, mindless computations. Thats why the
things were called “computers”. Yet even then, a few pioneers —
especially Alan Turing — envisioned whats now called “Artificial
Intelligence” – or “AI”. They saw that computers might possibly go
beyond arithmetic, and maybe imitate the
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