Can a machine think? Certainly not a new question. It has been debated endlessly since the electronic computer, the "electronic brain," was invented some seventy years ago. I'm going to present an argument, based on elementary science and accepted research, that says we can build thinking machines, but not just yet. Then, I'm going to ask, "what's stopping us?"
I think it’s undeniable that it will be possible to build practically intelligent/skillful machines. There is a lot of this already. A lot of this research is fascinating, that’s probably why most of us are on here.
In two or three generations, the computers may be putting us to work!
I never get this last thought, though. We build tools and machines to augment our capabilities, to simplify our lives.
You might easily become a slave to machines (or more correctly to those that build social networks and other data hungry services), but that’s a twisted development of the original goal, and certainly not desirable.
I just wanted to share this…
There are now third-generation neural networks that spike and have gotten closer to biological realism- SNNs, or spiking neural networks. They can be implemented in both analog circuits or digital programming.
With theories based on recently discovered knowledge of neural connections, we have actually replicated basic brain functions with SNNs! These functions are far more primitive than the functions of our brains, of course, but I think it’s very cool regardless.
There are lots of papers along with a Wikipedia article about spiking neural networks, if you’re interested.
Thanks!
I am actually writing what is essentially a spiking neural net system that runs on Arduino:
Of course, as mentioned there, it is only capable of about 40 or so neurons, which is not very many, but it is still pretty neat.
It’s interesting that what is now called “spiking nerual network” is not really new; James Albus was using them 40 years ago. He achieved some amazing results with robots in the 80s and then researchers more or less ignored him for the next 25 years. Now it’s coming back into fashion. Kind of like bell bottom jeans 
I’m looking forward to more of that tutorial- it’s cool!
Also, it’s fascinating that spiking neural networks existed in the 80’s. It’s sad that Albus’ work was ignored for so long… I wonder where we would be if it wasn’t!
