Philosophers have floated the possibility of
intelligent machines as a literary device to help
us define what it means to be human. René
Descartes, for example, seems to have been
more interested in “mechanical man” as a
metaphor than as a possibility. Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz, on the other hand, seemed to see
the possibility of mechanical reasoning devices
using rules of logic to settle disputes. Both Leibniz
and Blaise Pascal designed calculating machines
that mechanized arithmetic, which had
hitherto been the province of learned men
called “calculators,” but they never made the
claim that the devices could think. Etienne
Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac used the metaphor
of a statue into whose head we poured nuggets
of knowledge, asking at what point it would
know enough to appear to be intelligent