Leibniz's folly was essentially that, the "Calculus Ratiocinator". He supposed a machine that could settle questions of law. The problem is that no one agrees o

Leibniz's folly was essentially that, the "Calculus Ratiocinator". He supposed a machine that could settle questions of law. The problem is that no one agrees on the meanings of the inputs. It's a common fallacy to believe that computers can produce "correct" answers to questions which a sample of 1,000 (or even 2) humans don't give the same answers to. If you have nothing unambiguous or even statistically reasonable to compare your answers against, the experiment is unfalsifiable. Human scientists (if they are such, and not just bottle-washers and button-sorters), pose questions and then experiment against reality, which is and always will be the final appeal. A computer "scientist" cannot avoid that -- they still have to simulate and experiment. Several do, actually. The best seem to be based on "genetic algorithms", ie, simulation and experiment, just faster. So there are many things computers can do and will do. But expecting a computer to tell you whether abortion is right or wrong, or to run for president, or be a perfect oracle, is missing the point. We, as humans, are very probably incapable of building something more intelligent than ourselves, because, by definition, we wouldn't recognize it if we did. Eliezer will probably jump in at this point, and I'm curious what he'd say.