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ARE COMPUTERS MORE INTELLIGENT THAN HUMAN BEINGS

BY

NOREEN SARAI

Consider the following 3 practical examples: A computer system that allows a severely

handicapped person to type merely by moving their eyes. The device is able to follow eye

movements that briefly fix on letters of the alphabet. Then it types the letters at a rate that has

allowed some volunteers to achieve speeds of 18 words per minute after practice. Another

similar computer system for the handicapped is installed on mechanized wheelchairs. It allows

paralytics to order their wheelchairs wherever they want to go merely by voice commands.A

couple in London reportedly have adapted a home computer to act as a nanny for their baby. The

babys father, a computer consultant, programmed the computer to respond the instant baby

Gemma cries by talking to her in a soothing tone, using parental voices. The surrogate nanny will

also tell bedtime stories and teach the baby three languages as she begins to talk. These are just afew examples of Artificial Intelligence (AI), where a set of instructions, or programs are fed into

the computer which enables it to solve problems on its own, the way a human does. AI is now

being used in many fields such as medical diagnosis, robot control, computer games, flying

airplanes etc. Seeing all this technology leaves one wondering if computers are more intelligent

than humans. The advantages of AI are that certain tasks can be executed much faster and

accurately than a human does. AI can perform certain tasks better than most or even most people.

Also is more consistent than humans. Even in view of such impressive computer

accomplishments, The Brain Book says that in terms of its complexity and versatility, the

human brain far surpasses any computer on earth . And a computers speed in calculations and

step-by-step logic is far surpassed by the brains ability in parallel processing, integrating andsynthesizing information, and abstracting it from generalities. Computers do not even come

close to the brains ability to recognize a face or an object in an instant. For years mans brain

has been likened to a computer, yet recent discoveries show that the comparison falls far short.

How does one begin to comprehend the functioning of an organ with somewhere in the

neighborhood of 50 billion neurons with a million billion synapses (connections), and with an

overall firing rate of perhaps 10 million billion times per second? asked Dr. Richard M. Restak.

His answer? The performance of even the most advanced of the neural-network computers has

about one ten-thousandth the mental capacity of a housefly. Consider, then, how much a

computer fails to measure up to a human brain, which is so remarkably superior.

When a computer system needs to be adjusted, a programmer must write and enter new coded

instructions. Our brain does such work automatically, both in the early years of life and in old

age. Even the most advanced computers are very primitive compared to the brain. Scientists have

called it the most complicated structure known and the most complex object in the universe.

One scientist estimated that our brain can hold information that would fill some twenty million

volumes, as many as in the worlds largest libraries. Some neuroscientists estimate that during

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an average life span, a person uses only 1/100 of 1 percent (.0001) of his potential brain capacity.

A computer works only from instructions designed by a human being. If something goes wrong

it stops and waits for further instructions from the human operator. Such computers can be said

to be efficient but hardly intelligent. Therefore computers will never be intelligent than human

beings.