You seem really threatened by computers. I think the harm of Sci Fi is that its given us all these visions of killer robots and Skynet.
As for the question of whether computers can be intelligen
t I'm not so sure. The definition of "intelligent" keeps changing. I've been working with computers for a long time. When I first started one of the things the skeptics used to always say was "a computer will never be able to play a grand master in chess, to play at that level takes more than just number crunching it takes strategy, etc." Then came IBM's Deep Thought.
Then people said "a computer can't use natural language the way a human does" Now Watson isn't there yet but its a pretty big step in the right direction.
Also, keep in mind Moore's law which is roughly that computing power doubles every two years. That's a geometric progression. For perspective consider that my iPod has more computing power than the mainframes I programmed in the 70's which were bigger than my refrigerator. So Watson will in a decade or two run on your desktop and then on your phone.
To me its not threatening. IMO we don't really have a good definition for what human consciousness is yet so we can't say for sure if computers one day will be conscious but whether they will or not they will help us understand what human consciousness is and that's a good thing.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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