1.Do you think a computer can learn?

Answer 1

There are programs ( like speech & handwriting recognition) that adapt & become more efficient with usage, however, computers are basically very stupid.

All they do is add ... very very very quickly. Even multiplication, division & (yes) subtraction is all done through manipulation of addition in the CPU registers.

A computer will say that the world is flat if that's what you tell it. There is no intelligence there whatsoever .... just processing power.

It only knows what we tell it.
Yes... it can be a source of knowlegde but that is not intelligence.

If I memorize the entire Encyclopedia .... does that make me intelligent ? ... Of course not.
It doesn't mean I know or understand any of it just because I can repeat it.

We're not even close to that stage of technology yet ...

regards,
Philip T

Answer 2

It depends on what you consider learning to be!

This is a huge subject that comes under the heading of Artificial Intelligence.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

However, many organisations use these techniques to help them with there business processing.

For instance, most stock trading systems use something called neural networks to try and predict what prices will be based on a sample of historic data. They can be very successful if the historic data sample is good.

Hope this helps

Answer 3

computer intelligence comes from the programmer's and designer's intelligence ... it can learn, but computer can't analyze the data as we do .. for the computer, it's just some bits ...