Call me Batman
New member
That's more of a philosophical question, it depends on what you mean by 'think on their own'. There's really no way to prove that a human thinks on its own any more than my internet browser thinks on its own.
As it is, computers are perfectly capable of acting on their own, and can do so with data that they acquire on their own (through a sensor) as well. I don't see how that is any different from a human (or any other animal for that matter).
In terms of performance, computers are obviously superior at certain tasks (like manipulating data) but inferior at other tasks (like processing images). But you could say the same about comparisons between humans and other animals as well (for example, humans are probably better at manipulating data than eagles, but eagles may be better at processing images). So again, its hard to say that a human is any more intelligent or capable than a computer.
Then there is the matter of learning. Computers must be programmed (or, if machine learning is used, then they need some assistance to get them started at least), while humans learn on their own. The differences are more obvious here, but humans teaching humans isn't so different from humans programming computers. A child won't naturally learn to speak a language, it needs to be taught by other humans. Similarly, computers don't do spell checking naturally, they need to be programmed to do so. So again, I'd say that there isn't much of a difference between learning and programming. And in many cases, computers can be 'taught' (programmed) much faster than humans.
Emotions seem to be fairly consistent among humans, most people could probably agree on whether any given person is angry, sad or happy (or whatever other emotional state they may be in). In a computer, emotions would just correspond to pre-programmed responses to certain stimuli, since that would mimic the predictability/consistency of human emotions (the actual response itself might be quite complicated though).
As it is, computers are perfectly capable of acting on their own, and can do so with data that they acquire on their own (through a sensor) as well. I don't see how that is any different from a human (or any other animal for that matter).
In terms of performance, computers are obviously superior at certain tasks (like manipulating data) but inferior at other tasks (like processing images). But you could say the same about comparisons between humans and other animals as well (for example, humans are probably better at manipulating data than eagles, but eagles may be better at processing images). So again, its hard to say that a human is any more intelligent or capable than a computer.
Then there is the matter of learning. Computers must be programmed (or, if machine learning is used, then they need some assistance to get them started at least), while humans learn on their own. The differences are more obvious here, but humans teaching humans isn't so different from humans programming computers. A child won't naturally learn to speak a language, it needs to be taught by other humans. Similarly, computers don't do spell checking naturally, they need to be programmed to do so. So again, I'd say that there isn't much of a difference between learning and programming. And in many cases, computers can be 'taught' (programmed) much faster than humans.
Emotions seem to be fairly consistent among humans, most people could probably agree on whether any given person is angry, sad or happy (or whatever other emotional state they may be in). In a computer, emotions would just correspond to pre-programmed responses to certain stimuli, since that would mimic the predictability/consistency of human emotions (the actual response itself might be quite complicated though).