Science Can Build the Computer but Not the Operator

Dr. Wiener has said that at no time in the foreseeable future will scientists be able to construct an electronic brain anywhere near comparable to the human brain. "I think that our gadget-conscious public has shown an un-awareness of the special advantages and special disadvan­tages of electronic machinery, as compared with the human brain," he says. "The number of switching devices in the human brain vastly exceeds the number in any computing machine yet developed, or even thought of for design in the near future."
But even should such a machine be built, it would lack an "operator." A computer does not have a forebrain, nor an "I." It cannot pose problems to itself. It has no imag­ination and cannot set goals for itself. It cannot determine which goals are worthwhile and which are not. It has no emotions. It cannot "feel." It works only on new data fed to it by an operator, by feedback data it secures from its own "sense organs" and from information previously stored.