Some recent developments in puter industry make scientists predict that the gap between human beings and the machine will be closed by the year 20000.

To understand the significance of this prediction, let us pare the human brain with existing puters. The brain consumes electrical energy at the rate of 25 watts and occupies volume of one tenth of a cubic foot. The brain houses between 10 billion and 100 billion items of information. Every brain cell is directly connected to many other cells. As a result, the cells in which information is stored can municate with thousands of other cells. In contrast, the puter consumes 1,000,000 watts of electrical power and occupies hundreds of cubic feet of space. The puter memory is like a cell of pigeonholes, with no thinking capacity and no connections elsewhere.

In a word, the electronic brains can hopelessly succeed in parison with the human brains.