In a cartoon I designed for The Age of Spiritual Machines, a defensive “human race” is seen writing out signs that state what only people (and not machines) can do.215 Littered on the floor are the signs the human race has already discarded because machines can now perform these functions: diagnose an electrocardiogram, compose in the style of Bach, recognize faces, guide a missile, play Ping-Pong, play master chess, pick stocks, improvise jazz, prove important theorems, and understand continuous speech. Back in 1999 these tasks were no longer solely the province of human intelligence;
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