Are computers capable of doing what humans can do? It often seems that way. Alan Turing asked a similar question and proposed the thesis that computers can "think." Although a computer's processor is not identical to the way a human processes thought, Turing believes machines are capable of imitating human thought. There are computers that have passed the Turing test, which evaluates a computer's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior. In the test, a person converses with two entities, one a computer and the other a human. If the person cannot distinguish the computer from the human, the computer has passed the test. It's a pretty impressive feat for a computer to mimic human speech so well, and it shows that computers can exhibit human behavior in that way. However, human capabilities are not limited to language, so a computer must be able to do more to be considered to have human capabilities. Watson, an impressive machine created by IBM, is capable of doing amazing human-like things, such as winning Jeopardy, creating recipes, inventing cures for diseases, and providing transportation analytics. All of these feats require cognition, if not something very close. Watson is a great example of how computers are capable of what humans can do. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayAlthough computers like Watson may make it appear that computers are capable of doing what humans can do, this may not be the case. Many people say that computers are great at imitating humans, but that they can't really do what we do. Stanley Fish is one of those people and he considers computers to be stupid machines. Fish states that computers operate solely by a set of rules and are unable to deviate from those rules. Human beings always question and deviate from the rules because we are able to judge the rule in a context. Computers have no concept of context and work strictly by following the rules of their programs. Sean Kelly and Hubert Dreyfus, who agree that computers can't really think, point out that computers like Watson are only able to "think" through statistical frequencies in large databases. Watson can't think in context like we do, but rather looks for patterns and picks pieces from a huge pile of information. Kelly and Dreyfus also argue that computers are different from humans in that they do not have bodies. They cannot interact with the physical world like we do with sight, hearing, and touch. Computers may have cameras, microphones, and sensors, but they don't interact with the world the same way we do, with context. Computers cannot do what humans do because they have no concept of context and simply follow commands given to them by humans. There is a lot of information to support the fact that computers can do what we do. I think it's fair to say that computers can do what we do through imitation, even though they may not work the same way as humans. Watson is capable of doing several human things. He was able to beat Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy champion. It may be true that Watson doesn't process thought the same way a human brain does, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he did what a human can do: win Jeopardy. Watson is also capable of doing more imaginative things like creating recipes. Instead of tasting the ingredients and using the.
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