To add to that.....If a computer has a camera on it (it\'s eyes) and a microphone(ears) and can learn from it\'s mistakes (there are programs like chess that already do that) How long before a computer is smarter then us???
i\'ve had this conversation with my bass player before. i think a computer is already smarter than us. but when will a computer become conscious of itself? when this happens, will the human being be regarded as god by the computer? after all, we are their creator.
it depends on what you consider to be "smart." the human brain can process (i forgot the exact number) something like a million times more tasks simultaneously than the fastest current computer. subconsiously your brain is doing an ungodly (pun intended) amount of processing to make your body do everything that it does, mostly autonomically. However, computers that can been programmed to do a certain function (like chess) are "smarter" than humans at certain things because they can calculate probabilities/outcomes/mathmatical stats much faster than it would take a human to do them out on paper. these computers have the algorithms ready to go when they encounter a certain layout on the chess board.
But think of the above scenario this way. the amount of processing that needs to be done by a human just to be able to pick up a pencil, write on a paper the math, visualize the light waves that bounce back from the paper into your head so you know what you are writing, signal to every muscle in your body that simultaneously needs to move in order to write, and do all the other things that need to be processed in order to calculate the math properly,
while still being consious of your surroundings and react if your friend throws something at you and and you see it coming in your peripheral vision, or if your spouse calls to you that dinner is ready and you need to respond....these are all things that a computer cannot do, and thus the reason why the human brain is still way more powerful of a tool.
im a biophysicist, for the record