In 1950, Alan Turing made the suggestion that a computer would be able to pass as an actual human being. While those 50 years passed already with Turing's prediction not coming true, artificial intelligence's have improved by leaps and bounds.
In 1997, chess world champion Garry Kasparov lost to a computer called "Deep Blue". Many of the masters of chess thought that computers could never overcome the human brain, however in the most recent years that has proven false.
Although computers have been able to compete against the best chess players, there are still a few areas in which the human brain currently excels at. The board game Go is a very simple game, yet with extremely complex strategies. Many people spend a life time playing Go as a career. In the present, the best artificial intelligence for Go can compete with a 6-dan level, in which a 9-dan player is the highest ranking available for a pro. Still, it is only a matter of time until a computer is able to beat the best players in Go too.
To the right is a video in which the machine Watson, developed by IBM, competes against other players in the game show Jeopardy. It can quickly recognize a question and then answer it nearly instantly. It is shown to be dominating many of the players with ease.
Of course, the world is still decades away from a computer perfectly simulating a human perfectly. While the problem solving and knowledge capabilities of computers are highly advanced, there is little development in creating a computer that can walk around on its own. Ironic that what humans find difficult to do is easily done by a computer, yet what humans find as a simple action is complicated for a computer. Still, humans and animals had millions of years to grow, where as computers had the majority of their growth in the past century. Who knows how much further computers will advance in the next century.
The above graph shows how much computers have advanced throughout the years. MIPS is Instructions Per Second (counted by the million). Following the most recent trend, computer processing should reach the speed of the human brain by 2030.
Artificial Body Parts
Jan Scheuermann, age 52, was diagnosed with degenerative brain disorder and became paralyzed from the neck down. She is also able to smoothly control a robotic arm to do tasks taken for granted such as eating and drinking.
Recently, scientists have managed to use electrodes that were connected directly into the retina's of a patient allowing somebody that is normally blind to gain the ability to read simple patterns, like braille. Eventually, this technology may even allow blind patients to see the actual world.
In the past, if a person lost a limb, then it is gone. There is no way to get it back, and one has to struggle to live with it. The most a person can do is substitute their limb with some inanimate object such as wood or plastic. With computers, new technology is being developed that will allow others to regain control of the body parts that they lost. Not just an arm or a leg, but even organs that no longer work. The blind becoming capable to read, the paralyzed able to type/write with just a thought.
Scientists used computers and scanning devices to determine which part of the brain sends a signal to move a body part. Once they discovered specific those signals and nerves, those signals are read to become the input for a computer, and in turn is processed to move an artificial limb correctly.
Powered Exoskeletons
Instead of simply replacing a missing body part, a powered exoskeleton will boost the capabilities one already has. For instance, the Vanderbilt Exoskeleton is built to assist those with spinal cord injuries in moving around. It uses small processors in order to determine the users current motion, and then provides torque at the joints to help move the legs.
Other exoskeletons are also being developed, such as a futuristic army suits.