Do Computers Think

Recently, I witnessed a T.V. programme depicting student life at an American Law School in which a somewhat vigorous competition developed between the Law Faculty and the Engineering Faculty over the power of a computer. It began with laying odds to the effect that the computer could produce a better case analysis than a student. After several students had failed the test, the illustrious professor challenged the computer (together with the professor who had programmed it, it should be added!). Even the Law professor, for all his knowledge of detail and principle, was just pipped at the post in respect of most of the judgments and cases that were cited. However, the professor resorted to a complex problem that had been posed to him by a junior student, and which, up till that point, he had fobbed off, and posed it to the computer. As it involved grappling with notions of justice in relation to a hypothetical situation in which existing case histories did not serve adequate precedent, the giant mainframe went into overload, and had to be switched off. Thus it was that the Law Faculty was able to regain some sense of pride, and indeed to justify its very existence!