ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MEN AND MACHINES *

IN the normal way die question, ' What u the difference between a man and a marhinc ?' presents no difficulty. There is no shortage of cnteru for distinguishing them. We can tell at a glance that even the most ingenious electronic device is nothing like a man. It just does not look like one. It has no eyes or nose, and its surface is not made of skin. If we pnck it, it does not bleed, and, if we tickle it, it does not laugh. Even if a machine were sent on completion to Madame Tussaud and made to look like a human being, and even if people were at times deceived into thinlnng it a human bang, as they do die policeman on die stairs at Madame Tussaud's, mere is no doubt how the mistake could be corrected. Further examination would show that there were valves, or cog-wheels inside, and diat wax had been used in place of skin. Moreover, as Kapp has pointed out very forcibly, machines have a so-called ' input function'. ' They are manipulated at more or less frequent intervals by an operator, who uses handles, levers, pedals, push-buttons, and nrnilar' controlling devices ; and their performance is not a random one but one that die operator contemplates while he u exercising die control.' In contrast human beings do not cease to function if odier human bangs fail to operate die requisite controls. But even if an object were constructed which did not require interference from an operator, and even if a suitable internal mechanism