The persistence of memory: What it means to be human

Deep-learning machines are conquering realm after realm of human expertise, but is there a difference between Them and Us? I think the only thing that distinguishes us from the machines is memory. It is what makes us human, says Rajeev Srinivasan. In the wake of the astonishing feat by Google's AlphaGo machine in defeating, nay thrashing 4-1 the world's best player of Go, it is time for us to wonder what it is that is truly human, that which distinguishes us from the machines. Deep-learning machines are conquering realm after realm of human expertise, from chess to natural language to Go to other domains, and there is no reason to imagine their progress will come to a halt any time soon.