ABSTRACT
A vigorous controversy is going on at present. Computer engineers, programmers, and a select set of hard-headed social scientists are asserting, in faith and fervour, that we are at the verge of a significant scientific revolution, that we are at the verge, if not already beyond it, of building a machine that thinks. Humanists of all sorts, including the man-in-the-street, recoil at this prospect in horror, as if it were sacrilege ─ even if this could be done, it ought not be done. And the argument waxes ─ those opposing the machine being manoeuvred into appearing to be mystical metaphysicians opposing the progress of science, into appearing to be ‘reactionaries’.
