21st September 2005, 3:41 PM
A computer doesn't "see" jack. It's a bunch of reactions that have about as much of a conciousness as one of those old games where you drop a ball down a plane lined with pegs and it bounces randomly until it ends up in one of the prize buckets at the bottom. Yes, it really is EXACTLY as intelligent as that at this moment in time. There's absolutly nothing more going on than that.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)