The Rise of Artificial Unintelligence

Computers may one day be able to reason exactly as humans do, but will they ever be as dumb? I had always thought that was impossible. The other day, I was in Penn Station on my way home from work. A team of scientists had set up a table with a laptop running the latest pattern-recognition software, and they were asking passersby to suggest questions for the computer. With twenty minutes on my hands, I asked it to find the best place for me to sit while waiting for my train.