At 09:44 PM 02/06/01 -0400, R. Gancie/C.Parcelli wrote:
>Because of the broad commercial applications in industry, the U.S.
>Congress
>and the courts will in the near future be taking up the question of
>whether or not to grant
>"human rights" to automata, or robots.

This posting is technically overoptimistic.  Among other things

 - Von Neumann provided one of the stepping stones that may get
   us to intelligent machines, but not the biggest
 - Machines are not remotely close to acting intelligent.
 - The decades-long quest to make them intelligent has foundered
   on the rock of our ignorance of how our own  minds work.

One of these decades, these issues will become material.  Er,
where does EP come in? -Tim