Sorry, IP, I was actually responding to Helen's post more than yours, and perhaps not even that. Probably I should have made it a [rant].
I have suffered for years (ever since I wrote a dissertation on natural language processing for a post-grad diploma) from hearing those around me saying things like "machines will be able to think soon". That's codswallop.
They may well be able to process information in a way which appears to the casual observer to be based on human thought processes, but it won't be real. It'll all be clever programming which
mimics the external manifestations of thought, that's all. I'm sure we've all heard of the "Eliza" program and the urban mythology surrounding it. And that's as close as we're likely to get for some time.
Of course, I'm almost always wrong when predicting information processing trends. So the first successful "Deep Thought" computer is probably being commissioned
right now!
