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 …

…ll change from opaque mysteries to complex yet still comprehensible webs of ways to represent and use ideas. Then those ideas, in turn, will lead to new machines, and those, in turn, will give us new ideas. No one can tell where that will lead and only one thing's sure right now: there's something wrong with any claim to know, today, of any basic differences between the minds of men and those of possible machines.