Creating a robot that can think and know would be a very interesting feat for anyone to achieve. There are so many things that the scientists involved with this kind of experiment must be able to do.

So what will influence people to want to construct robots that can think and know. That is basically creating a human being, just under the different heading, ROBOTS. So why human beings want to make other human beings, and this time not biologically, is a question that amuses me thoroughly. Is it that we cannot accept the fact that some things are just not possible considering our abilities? I feel that human beings try to avoid the natural way of things and pursue unimaginable things like creating life in objects.

Im alluding to life basically because I believe that the creation of robots that can think and know is synonymous to creating a human being since this robot will need to possess certain characteristics that will grant it the opportunity to experience thought and knowledge. In order for the robot to know and think, it must be able to feel, reason, sense and perceive, and communicate appropriately. So how can the robot be made to experience all these things:

Since these are biological tendencies, I am going to look at the biological aspect of things. Firstly, the scientist must be able to create nerves that can carry electrical impulses to send messages to the brain for certain processes to occur to cause the robot to sense and perceive its environment. The scientist must be able to create hormones and glands that cause feeling and emotion that the robot can experience. Also, the scientist must be able to construct the robot's mind in such a way that it can think logically and reason effectively and finally, create a mechanism that will enable the robot communicate effectively and learn new languages.

For these things to occur, the scientist must be able to create life. Therefore, scientists can create robots that can think and know when the things mentioned are achieved. But till then...

i do not think that scientists can create a machine that can think.To think means "to have a conscious mind, to some extent of reasoning, remembering experiences, making rational decisions". An example of thinking will be that, the last time i put the bottle of coke in the freezer, someone came for it and so i will not put it in this time, even though that is the right place to put it. I believe these machines a created with a knowledge base which expects them to output b with input a (put the coke in the fridge every morning,will do so until it is programmed not to do so ) and even with that, it is the human " does the thinking" and transfers this to the machine such as expert systems. for now, i do not think it can happen but living in an age where technology is "moving faster than time", i would not be surprised to witness this break through.

Before i go on to state my points, i think Ayikarkor's point is flawed. Machines do learn and can be programmed to defer from situations that lead to undesired ends. Simple example, playing chess against a computer.

Can machines think, its an interesting question I'd like to give an interesting twist to. could you ever make a program that would accept two numbers as inputs and output any one of them based on nothing else.

I used to think there was a yes answer to them untill i discovered that many times, when we ask a computer to do something random, what actually happens is that the computer uses the current date and time to perform a complex set of calcutaions, so complex that it almost looks like its results are random. But they actually arent. If you froze time, you'd get the same answer everytime.

I beleve the same happens in relation to robots thinking. The best we can ever get to is a machine that considers a very, VERY large number of factors before it makes a decision. But it will never create thought on its own.

But this leads to another interesting point. Are we as humans just following our basic programming. Couldn't we have also started out as 1s and 0's and have now gottern to the stage where the calculation is too complex to figure out how it started. Or are we just randomly develoing thoughts? That's an interesting one to consider.

I had an Interesting discussion with Kwaw on this topic and something interesting came up. If we decided to look at thinking as just following a set of defined logic rules, then we can say that a computer does think, we can even say that the computer is the best thinker because it many at times follows a set of rules that is flawless. Can we consider that to be thinking?

I vehemently disagree with Crystal's point.

The universal robotics lab has been progressing exponentially these past years. Robots can feel, show emotion, sense stimulus in the environment and obviously, communicate, or their purpose would be defeated.

The issue here is not to do with whether they cannot interact with the environment sufficiently, which they do perfectly, but rather how they proceed to the next level of actually making judgement or solving problems.

Creators of such machines are basically recreating the thought process in the humans. Thus, we see machines in industries that will perform functions depending on certain factors, which a human would do in the same situation. That is why machines are replacing workers so easily. This point is valid as far as thinking is defined as judgement.
When thinking of thought as creating solutions to problems, computers gain the full marks once again. We use software that create timetables, mindmaps etc.
Lastly, when defining thinking as thinking about random things like humans sometimes do. Eg. thinking 10 years into the future when you have a mega-paid job when in fact you are to be paying attention in class. Computers cannot be as spontaneous as that.

That said, computers do make a great attempt at thinking but spontaneous generation of thoughts might still prove to be a big problem to be tackled.

Take a look at this link for illustration:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/09/nao-robot-develop-display-emotions

From my point of view, computers/robots cant think for themselves. Take for example a situation whereby a human is driving a car. A human may be driving when immediately, a pedestrian crosses the road. Any human’s reaction would be to stop or swerve the person. We as humans in a split second can take into consideration how narrow the road is, how fast the car is moving etc, before making a decision. We basically reason out our next move before carrying it out and we are able to do it quickly-due to the fact that we possess adrenaline. However if a robot was driving the car it may not be able to consider all the factors that should be used to determine its reaction. Even if it contains motion, proximity sensors, would it be able to put together all these factors together in such a short period of time, considering the fact that it probably carries out most tasks at the same rate and does not possess any natural thing to increase its rate. Even if it is programmed to stop for example in such situations, imagine it being on a highway. I mean we all know the consequences o stopping on a highway don’t we. Maybe I haven’t expressed my point clearly but I do not believe robots can ever think for themselves, since thinking requires a conscious mind and the ability to make rational decisions. Please correct me if you want to

Kwaw so if there are robots that can think and know as you said there are, then how come scientists are unable to create actual human beings? Real, life-breathing human beings since the robots have the ability to know and think just like human beings do anyway. Why are they called robots and not human beings?

To be able to come up with a creation that can think, I still hold on to my beliefs that they must possess certain biological tendencies. In fact, looking at robots, they are fed with the information. The information does not come out of their own understanding. If you argue that the information they are given is built on by what they experience, then I must counter-attack and say that the knowledge they received in the first place did not come from them but was human-fed.

Even animals, who have the ability to know and think but whose knowledge and thoughts are not as extended and developed as human beings do this based on the biological tendencies they possess. So for scientists to create thinking knowing robots, they must overcome the limitations of creating a living organism, and afterwards just name that robot or creation a human being!

The issue of creating humans is besides the point.

Saying that robots are fed with information is not entirely factual. Robots are equipped with sensors, tools that do not have the limitations humans experience when using their sense perception. That said, you realise they sense the happenings of the world in a more efficient less erroneous manner.

To illustrate my point clearly, let me compare the newly configured robot to a baby. Babies do not come into the world with developed minds. They are "fed" with input from others; creche teachers, parents etc. Likewise, robots take in an initial input. They build on this knowledge, perform duties more efficiently... Think about what it means to "think like a computer".

Computers don't NEED to be human to think.

Firstly to Marteys point, I think your point is completely flawed because Humans will never be able to reach reaction speeds that robots could be programed to reach, no matter how much adrenalin flows through their brain. The Arithmetic and Logical Units of CPU's can make billions of decisions in a fraction of a second: considerationns that a human may never be able to take in can be computed in a micro second.

To Crystals, I agree that scientists may never be able to create a human being. but they dont have to create a human being to create a thinking being. In my opinion, animals do think and they aren't human beings.

But i think you do have a point though when it comes to being fed with information. I think that for a process to be considered a thought process, it must be original. I must generate my thoughts in order to be thinking. Computers may be said to be generating tought by taking in input and generating its own methods but here's the flaw in its "thinking" process:

Imagine the world's most complex computer, (like Aria from the movie at entertainment), it could take in informatino from a variety of sources: every internet connection, every security camera and every microphone was connected to this computer so that it did so much "thinking" that it eventually thought that it was smart enough to comtrol the world. Now the fact remains that if you reset this computer, and repeatd all world events, in the same order, Every movemnt, every thing spoken into a micorphone ie, kept all it's input constant. It would still end up thinking the same way.

My point is, unless you can prove that a human will do the same thing ina particular situation all the time, you cannot say a computer is thinking, because it will just be following a set of defined steps, including steps that require it to create its own processes. Thus computers can never think! :)

Seeing as I’m not a very technologically inclined person please cut me some slack on the comment I’m about to make.

Science is dynamic and it is developing at such an exponential rate that no sooner will a person say “It cannot be done,” than it’s being done. However I really doubt if science can produce a thinking machine. Yes machines can be created in such a way that the processes they carry out are amazingly human – following pre-set instruction in such a way that they can discern when to do what and when not to do what.

Yet human’ s are superior beings for a reason – two human beings may not necessarily think through situations in the same way, though they may come to similar conclusions. It is what makes us human! Humans are able to find various alternative ways to reacting to situations, sometimes even coming out with new ways of dealing with certain situations. The fact that our brains are constantly making neural connections that make us more and more intelligent by the second is something I doubt can be replicated in machines. Machines can be updated to think in a new way but they cannot generate these new ways of thinking on their own. In essence, they feign the art thinking because humans have thought!

I very much agree to the fact that humans are superior beings. But the question we are still asking is can a machine think? Yaw will argue with me that the computer can be fed inputs and has to process the input to bring out an output. For the machine at this point, it is a thinking process because it has been fed some factors to consider and produce the right output.

However, let us remember the definition Ayikarkor gave for the word, thinking, "to have a conscious mind, to some extent of reasoning, remembering experiences, making rational decisions."

Still, Kwaw will argue with me that the machines learn from past experiences and do not repeat their mistakes. But we must remember that it is the superior human who is thinking who examines the flaws of the machine and tries to fix such flaws.

Hence the ability of a machine to think is through the aid of a human. To a large extent then, I can say that perhaps, machines do not necessarily think by their own decisions but they think with the help of humans.

I also believe that Yaw is not justified to say that Martey's example is completely flawed beause it is undebatable that humans are superior thinkers.

We nust remember that they created the MACHINES!!! MACHINES do not think to create themselves. HUMANS think thoroughly to create MACHINES.

I think that since we humans are the ones that feed inputs into computers and robots for them to function, there is no such thing as computers being able to think without human assistance. For example, we humans are the ones that set certain parameters for the computers. All the ideas and processes that a computers goes through or attains is because of what exactly we feed into them and how exactly we program them to function. They have no hand in any of that and as such, the root of their "thinking" is all done by us humans.

Also I would like to say that in very extreme situations, where a great sense of consciousness and discernment is needed, computers become simply useless as they carry out the tasks they have been programmed to execute. say for example, in Audi, a Deer Avoidance Package has been installed in the car. Now when the driver of this Audi is on a road close to the woods and a bear comes onto the road, the car will be unable to sense this creature on the road because the parameters set for it include features of a deer which a bear does not possess. So in effect, the car will not swerve round the bear but run directly into it. This is one instance where computers fail to think.

I agree with crystal where she said that a robot must have the ability to feel and reason,which means possessing the qualities that we humans possess. May I add that indeed computers do not REASON, but only refer to the options that have been input by man, in solving a situation that they(the computers) have encountered, based on the set parameters they know.

I think the absence of hormones and other biological aspects of our body which robots do not have make them incapable of thinking. Robots are only good at following the orders that they have been programmed to follow, but for the pure ability of thinking is something that will take more than a group of geniuses to figure out.

ok right now, there is not a machine that can think for itself and just as Kweku said humans are bascially the ones that feed input into the machine to arrive at the desired output. However, we cannot deny the fact, that science and technology is developing rapidly, there may be other things that a machine will be able to do but thinking is not one of them. I agree with Crystal when she said that a machine must be able to feel and reason. What makes humans have the ability to think is a result of something affecting the way they reason or feel. Different feeling arise and change one's perception about a matter. But machines have so little to offer unlike the human mind, which is and will always be the most powerful thing.

Amanuel Nigussie

I am afraid I don’t think a machine and human mind are not things to compare with each other. Because, machines are made and programmed by human mind to specific activities in order to help us to save our time. It is not because a machine knows better than us. As a matter of fact machines know nothing they are programmed by our mind.

Ok, i must say some of us are looking at it in the wrong way.

Firstly, the point that a machine needs the inputs from a human can be debunked. There are several machines that take no human input but process data using input from elsewhere. Data loggers are a simple example of this.

secondly, the poin tabout the deer avoidance system can also be debunked. There are rays in the atmosphere that can cause damage to humans(cancer causing rays, not really sure). But the fact that our eyes have not been programmed to see these rays doesnt mean we cant think. If we could see these rays, we would aoid them, wouldnt we.

On abigails point: "Humans are able to find various alternative ways to reacting to situations, sometimes even coming out with new ways of dealing with certain situations." This may be a result of our programming. IN our CS classes, we are encouragesd to find different ways of creating programs. And there are billions of alternative solutions to problems in computer systems. OUr ability to come up with new solutions may be programmed into a computer. A medical diagnosis system can be programmed to link symptoms that are regularly reported together and automatically prescribe for the treatments of one disease when another is reported. It's come up with a new way, hasnt it?

About Marilyns point on humans fixing computer's flaws, i will use a simple example. There are rules that allow a computer sytem to either check for errors or receive reports on errors and respond approriately. a majority of the errors that occur in your computer system are automatically dealt with without you even noticing something went wrong.

I'm not saying that computers can think, but I do believe that if we look at all the processes that go into human thought, computers are very close and may oneday even surpass us in doing this. Do you think there are any particular characteristics of human thought that a computer cannot emulate?

As stated before machines cannot reason Yaw. That is an aspect of human thought that a computer cannot emulate.

When I talk about human beings finding new ways of doing things, I'm not referring to a person doing something different because another person has told him how to react if this or that happens. Isn't that what computers do? As you have clearly stated above, and I quote, "Our ability to come up with new solutions can be programmed into a computer."

However if I as a human being choose to one day build my house on top of a mountain far away from civilisation in order to protect myself from noise pollution, isn't that a new way of doing something? Have I been programmed to do so? Can a computer take such a radical decision?

A classic example of a machines inability to reson is our school server blocking people from internet access. From what I have encountered so far, people have been automatically blocked by the server for reasons which a human being would have over-looked and ignored. Is the machine reasoning here? Or is just acting like what it has been programmed to be, A ROBOT?

I do agree with Abigail,Yaw for I will await the day when machines will be able to reason.

Robots according to searchio-midmarket.techtarget.com robots are machines designed to execute one or more tasks repeatedly, with speed and precision.

It is true that now, technology is growing rapidly and that now it may seem like they can do everything, but the truth is, the fact of the matter is that robots cannot reason! Robots, Yaw, like you said, work based on past experiences and therefore if a human being carries out an action out of the blue, like the example abigail gave, then there is no way the robot can carry out this action if WE have not programmed it to do so! It being programmed to do so means justifies the fact that robots cannot REASON by itself.

Hi, further thought on this subject has made me arrive at some conclusions i think i should share. But firstly, I'd like to apologize for an inappropriate comment I made to Abigail while discussing this topic: I'm sorry :(

Ok, I’m not saying that machines or robots that exist now can think or reason like we humans can. Yes, we are very complex beings and it would take a lot to create anything like us. But i just want us to consider the characteristics that would make machines reason by analyzing the reasoning process.

There are some very basic aspects of reasoning that currently both humans and robots can do. Simple example: if 1 + 1 = 2, then 1 + 2 = 3, or "The last time I put my hand in fire, I got burnt. So I will not put my hand into fire again. Unless you disagree that this kind of logic utilizes some form of reason then we can say that machines do have at least some level of reason.

Now let's look at the example of the mountain guy. He was following logic in the sense that, eh wanted to be far away from noise so he decided to move away from it to an extreme location. Here's what must have gone through his mind: There is noise here, so i must put myself in a place that is farther from noise. He never once in this process thought of going closer to it and that is reasoning that machines can do. E.g.: When sending date, they take a path that will allow the data to flow and not one that will prevent it from flowing.

Now to the main point about this: This mountain guy had a lot of options as to where to move. And he chose an extreme one. What influenced his choice, one of two things
1: it may have been a million other factors that we have no idea about. We could even consider a picture his eyes had glanced by 20 years ago as a factor causing this decision.
2: A random choice

The first option is the reasoning that computers would practice if they were ever to reason. They would use all the inputs and factors that they have experienced to make this decision. If this is how humans reason, then it implies that we are preprogrammed people, following a set of instructions that may have started out to be simple but have evolved into this very complex set of instructions. It would also mean that (assuming creation is factual) is another universe was created in the exact same way as this one was, this universe would be the exact same as ours. It would also mean that there exists no free will. I believe computers can be created in such a way. These computers would reason by considering such a huge number of inputs that it would seem human. But it would do the same exact thing if every one of its input since its creation was the same.

However, if the mountain man's choice of an action were random, a choice of free will; not based on any past event then it means that computers will never be able to reason like humans. What would make us special will be our ability to make decisions independent of any other factors. This can never be so in computers because of their lack of a capacity to be random (see earlier comments).

Personally I believe in free will and thus I must say that computers will never be able to reach the thinking capacities that humans have. I hope I have made my points more conclusively now. Thanks (and sorry for the long post) :)

First of all, I’ll like to say that the focus of this discussion is the MIND VRS MACHINE (the ability to reason) not HUMANBEINGS VRS MACHINE. We should realize that, this feat has been accomplished in many ways. The ability to reason is the driving force of most robots (machines) of this century. Reason is the ability to make decision based on ideas. Reasoning is said to be a characteristic of human but in this century, this doesn’t hold. Many machines of this age have the ability to reason. With machines, the process of reasoning is all about sorting the inputs and producing a solution.
Automation encircles the ability of machines to reason. Automation deals with the creation of robots to replace humans as much as possible in that they can make judgments based on their inputs. I guess then they should definitely be able to reason to do that. Automation encompasses many vital elements, systems, and job functions. Automation provides benefits to virtually all of industry.
In our arguments, we should realize that there are different forms of reasoning that contribute to different aspects of life. The fact that a machine cannot build a house on a mountain far from noise pollution or dodge a bear on the road doesn’t imply that a machine cannot think. I think we should change our perceptions of thinking and relate these closely to the functionality of a machine because in my opinion, machine work based on reasoning
Marilyn, i sincerely disagree with you that the human fix the flaws of machines. We are in a progressive world today and it’s such that robots can take care of a problem or deal with situations which seem to be abnormal. That’s the reason for expert systems.
Yaw, you said something about machines redoing the same processes even if it they were to switch them off and start them again. I disagree with you on that because humans are likewise the same. It’s like developing a habit; they would repeat the same thing every time the same input/ideas are feed into the thinking process.
I don’t disagree to the superior nature of man to robots but I don’t doubt the fact that it can ever happen. I believe that movies are like prediction (especially science fiction movies). They give as an insight to very aspects of life. If movies like irobot have illustrated this phenomenon, I don’t see why it can’t happen in the near future. Maybe all the little abilities of various machine would be added together to make a THINKING BEING….