Can computers think (now or in the future)? - The Tao of Computing - page 434

the street. Or in a telephone which allowed me to con
verse with a friend in Germany, he in German and me in
English. For you see my computer friend had the ability to
recognize faces, synthesize voice, understand spoken sen
tences, and translate languages, and things like that.*
As this talk by Woody Bledsoe suggests, many researchers have
long had the goal of making a machine that has intelligence and can
perform in many ways as humans can. So, where do we stand be
tween our goal for simulating intelligence and the reality of the cur
rent stateoftheart technology?
The question of whether a computer can, or will, think can only
help us begin a long and exciting inquiry, for even a partial answer
must touch such fields as philosophy, religion, biology, psychology,
and computing. At the very start, we must consider what we mean
by “thought” or intelligence. Before we can know how well com
puters function, we must consider how we might reasonably know
whether something is intelligent or not. From this starting point, we
can review how computing has progressed, what computers can do
now, and where research might lead in the future.
Our discussion will provide a number of perspectives about the
nature of intelligence and the potential for computing. With this in
formation, you can draw your own conclusions about a computer's
ability, or potential ability, to think.
What is intelligence?
Much of the initial trouble in discussing whether computers
might be intelligent relates to finding an appropriate definition of
intelligence. We want a definition that is general enough to include
various forms of thought, but we also want a definition that ex
cludes simple behaviors, such as a doorbell ringing when you push
a button. When defining intelligence, the definition should:
Include rational activities of human beings
Allow for processes of higher mammals, such as dolphins and
chimpanzees, that many people recognize as being intelligent
Allow for the possibility of different life forms from outer
space—perhaps based on quite different chemical systems
*Bledsoe, W.W. “I Had a Dream: AAAI Presidential Address.” 19 August 1985.
AI Magazine 7(1):57-58.