Ray Kurzweil, a leading proponent of the search for a sentient computer system notes, “IBM’s Watson is not quite at human levels in its ability to understand human language.

“If it were, we would be at the Turing test level now. Yet it was able to defeat the best humans in the game show Jeopardy! This is because of the inherent speed and reliability of memory that computers have,” Kurzweil said.

Kurzweil responds in MIT Technology Review, “Don’t Underestimate the Singularity,” October 19, 2011.

Whether or not Kurzweil and his colleagues achieve their goal, he underscores the fact that computers have inherent characteristics that make even weak AI systems useful. […]