Between 2010 and 2010? That’s a mighty precise range prediction
Seriously though, I don’t think that’s actually a realistic forecast. Computers are designed differently to the human brain. On their most basic level, computers perform mathematics. This means everything they do is based on the manipulation of numbers, including even the most intricate artificial intelligence. The human brain works differently. It functions by maintaining an extensive list of linked nodes, and works on building associations between them (on the most basic level). This might not appear relevant to the topic, but I’m getting to the point.
I think people tend to over-humanize everything. Honestly, people are always accidentally mistaking any and all sentient devices/creatures for humans. Heck, even God has been overly humanized, and on occasion is referred to as harboring hated, love, and a working definition of good vs evil. It’s easy to make this mistake, because to us, emotions like this make up everything we’ve ever known. In the real world though, without those evolution-given desires to stay alive, or the chemical-based effects of love and hatred, how could you really compare artificial intelligence to humans?
I had this discussion on a programming forum yesterday, coincidentally. A question was raised regarding the AI demonstrated in the Terminator movies, and how realistic it was given the time period that the movie took place in. Everyone automatically fell into the trap, and started to pretend (without realizing) that the robots would somehow inherently obtain all human traits regarding survival, reproduction, greed, desire for power/control, and so on. In my opinion, a perfectly sentient artificial intelligence would NOT behave like a human. Why would it? More than likely, it would be mostly indifferent about its survival, its possessions, and its power/ego. Theoretically those traits could be programmed into it, but the machine would then be less alive, and more a puppet.
I’d like to hear some other opinions on the issue.