Can artificial intelligences be truly intelligent? This question is part of the Strong AI vs. Weak AI debate. "The Computer as a Metaphor for the Human Mind" at mdr.aletheia.be/crossings/Issue1-96/Mind.htm introduces many key issues in the debate. According to "A Theology of Robots" by Edmund Furse at www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/staff/efurse/
Theology-of-Robots/A-Theology-of-Robots.html eventually intelligent robots will exist and they will have a religious life. The Stanford Electronic Humanities Review special issue on AI, "Constructions of the Mind: Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities" at www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/toc.html contains many interesting articles, including "Ethics and Second-order Cybernetics" by Heinz von Foerster. For an introduction to the range of ethical questions involved in the use of medical expert systems, read "Who Will Bear Moral Responsibility?" at www.ccsr.cms.dmu.ac.uk/conferences/ccsrconf/
abstracts/anderson.html. A good book to read that considers what artificial intelligence programs can and can't do is Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter (Basic Books, March 1996).