ABSTRACT
With exponential developments in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence and cybernetics, and the growing popular fascination with robots and cyborgs witnessed throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, Jefferson’s disclaimer on the possibility of a thinking machine has since been much quoted and contested. For instance, Alan Turing quickly rebutted Jefferson in his 1950 article entitled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” in which he introduces the now famous Turing Test. Surmising that “at the end of the century the use of words and general opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted,” Turing suggests that underlying Jefferson’s argument is a “solipsist point of view,” according to which “the only way to know that a man thinks is to be that particular man” (49, 52).1 Meanwhile, Isaac Asimov detects an irony in Jefferson’s supposition that robots can’t create literary or musical work, and makes a simple yet clever retort: “Can you?” With his imaginative invention of a positronic brain, wherein the Three Laws of Robotics are inscribed, Asimov has written science fiction stories about thinking robots, the prominent example of which would be the rational and loyal robot detective, R Daniel Olivaw, from his Robot Series.
