思维这一主题是心理学的一个研究领域，许多观察者在研究机器人和计算机时都考虑到了这一方面：一些由来已久的关于AI（人工智能）的忧虑与计算机能否思考密切相关。第一批巨大的能快速运算（即使往往不太可靠）并且几乎或完全不能进行创造性活动的电子计算机，不久便被称作“电脑”。接着很快便产生了对这一术语的反应：为了做到恰如其分，人们把计算机称作“高速白痴”，以保护人类的虚荣心。在这样一种氛围里，人们很少考虑计算机可以实际上具有生命的可能性：计算机竟有可能思考，这已经够糟糕的了。但并不是人人都意识到“高速白痴”这一称谓的含义是什么。人们很少提到的是：即使是人类中的白痴，也是地球上最有智慧的生命形态之一，如果早期的计算机就有那么聪明，那已经就是很了不起的事了。
The topic of thought is one area of psychology, and many observers have considered this aspect in connection with robots and computers: some of the old worries about AI (artificial intelligence) were closely linked to the question of whether computers could think. The first massive electronic computers, capable of rapid (if often unreliable) computation and little or no creative activity, were soon named “electronic brains”. A reaction to this terminology quickly followed: To put them in their place, computers were called “high-speed idiots”, an effort to protect human vanity. In such a climate, the possibility of computers actually being alive was rarely considered: it was bad enough that computers might be capable of thought. But not everyone realized the implications of the expression the “high-speed idiot” tag. It has not been pointed out often enough that even the human idiot is one of the most intelligent life forms on the earth. If the early computers were even that intelligent, it was already a remarkable state of affairs.
