[Jack Black]

I don't know. Ray Kurzweil has already revolutionized multiple areas of human endevour. I believe he did a lot of the foundational work around digital audio sampling, which led to electronic music synthesizers that accurately mimic instruments. He also invented a lot of the basic OCR (optical character recognition) technology. His web site has a robotic person with a synthesized voice on it that you can interact with.

We routinely interact with voice response systems that are able to understand our speech. In 1985 a friend who was an AI research PhD at a university told me that that 'might never be possible'.

I think the track record of Dr. Kurzweil is pretty impressive and I would not bet against him.

[Jack Black]

But any liberal who's seen Blade Runner will probably make a case for it.

Huh? How about any person who has seen Blade Runner. After all, while genetically engineered and grown in vats the replicants were people, with intelligence, feeling, emotion and sensation. Would you support NOT extending rights to such people? Based on what ideology? Conservatism? I don't think so.

[Fitzcarraldo]

We routinely interact with voice response systems that are able to understand our speech. In 1985 a friend who was an AI research PhD at a university told me that that 'might never be possible'.

Maybe he was basing his conclusions on projected CPU speeds and memory limitations, rather than software design.

Is the word "understand" appropriate here? Again, that is an anthropromorphism. I would prefer "convert".

[JamesP81]

I think the track record of Dr. Kurzweil is pretty impressive and I would not bet against him.

It's one thing to make a better program or a faster processor. It's quite another to invent a living, self-aware creature, if that's in fact what an AI would be.