This is an attempt to analyze attitudes and arguments brought forth by questions like "Can machines think?" and "Can machines exhibit intelligence?" Its purpose is to improve the climate which surrounds research in the field of machine or artificial intelligence. Its goal is not to convince those who answer the above questions negatively that they are wrong (although an attempt will be made to refute some of the negative arguments) but that they should be tolerant of research investigating these questions. The negative attitudes existent today tend to inhibit such research.Reprinted in Feigenbaum & Feldman, Computers and Thought (1963).Also in Datamation 9(3), March 1963, pp.34-38.Symposium on Bionics, Rand Technical Report 60 600, pp. 13-19

Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, Vol 7, pp. 102-128

In 1960 IRE WESCON Convention Records 4:96-104

Communications of the ACM, Vol 4, No. 3, pp. 229-243, 1960

Man-computer symbiosis is an expected development in cooperative interaction between men and electronic computers. It will involve very close coupling between the human and the electronic members of the partnership. The main aims are 1) to let computers facilitate formulative thinking as they now facilitate the solution of formulated problems, and 2) to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence on predetermined programs. In the anticipated symbiotic partnership, men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking. Preliminary analyses indicate that the symbiotic partnership will perform intellectual operations much more effectively than man alone can perform them. Prerequisites for the achievement of the effective, cooperative association include developments in computer time sharing, in memory components, in memory organization, in programming languages, and in input and output equipment. IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics, HFE-1, pp 4-11. See also: ACM Digital Library citation: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=612433.

MIT Press.

Research report RC 294, IBM, Yorktown Heights, New York

In Yovitts, M. and Cameron, S. (eds.) Self-organizing Systems. New York: Pergamon

IRE International Convention Record, pt 2, pp. 66-70

Report VG-1196-G-4, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory.