As Rosenblatt explained it, the machine had learned this skill on its own, thanks to a mathematical system modeled on the human brain. He called it a Perceptron. In the future, he said, this system would learn to recognize printed letters,2 handwritten words, spoken commands, and even people’s faces, before calling out their names. It would translate one language into another. And in theory, he added, it could clone itself on an assembly line, explore distant planets, and cross the line from computation into sentience.
