Planes that are afraid of crashing?

An interesting excerpt from
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/b...oad/index.html :

" Pearson (some brainiac computer expert guy) predicted that it would be
possible to build a fully conscious computer with superhuman levels of
intelligence as early as 2020.
IBM's BlueGene computer can already perform 70.72 trillion calculations a
second and Pearson said the next computing goal was to replicate
consciousness.

"We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could
become conscious. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and
that's what we're trying to design in computer."

Pearson said that computer consciousness would make feasible a whole new
sphere of emotional machines, such as airplanes that are afraid of
crashing."



I'm not sure if this is scary as hell or not.

--
Jim Fisher