Thinking Technology

While working on research for my poli paper, i came across an article that discusses, among other things, the need for smarter computers to fight the war on terror. A computer that has the ability to reason - instead of simply repeat the data and sequences that has been placed into it's memory by people. Although some forms of AI appear to have independent thought, it still cannot make rational decisions with consequential actions without some form of human input.

I am reminded of J.F. Lyotard's work on something of cyborgian theory. The seperation of body and mind - and basically, he states that the one thing seperating man from machine is the inability for computers to truly think for themselves, since the very nature of coding lies in logic.

Crossing this line is potentially very dangerous - man creates machine - machine takes over man - this is a common theme in alot of sci-fi...if only the people pushing for this type of technology would heed a bit of warning from the prophetic nature of sci-fi history.