is it possible to perform tasks:
- translate spoken english into spoken mandarin chinese in real-time
- play football (soccer) against human opponents to a reasonable level
- perform a complex surgical operation without assistance

using Artificial intelligence. is it possible to design an agent to perform such tasks.

regards

Well it is not a question of whether or not all off that may be done - but it is a question of whether or not anyone is creative enought to come up with the perfect algorithim to do all of the above and even a lot more...

It comes down to one question in the end... Can computers think..?(very debateble acording to me...)

Can submarines swim?

I believe that spoken english to spoken chinese can already occur in real time provided it is a literal word for word translation. There are already text to speech processors and speech to text processors. There are already english to chinese translators. All three can operate in real time. Therefore, it seems the technology for each component needed already exists.

Hi,

Neither of three is possible today with our technology for the following reasons :
1. Even curent CAT (Computer Aided Translation) softwares which are humane assisted are far from being adequate. (even for Western langs.) I use Systran 5.0 Premium and web services like www.Worldlingo.com for English/French/Italian/Spanish and they are far less than acceptable. (Try yourself.)
2. If you mean physical football playing (not FIFA 2005 CD the best humanoid robot capable of walking is like majorly paralyzed compared to an average human.
3. Even expert surgeons can't perform complex operations with out any assistance!

Neither of three will be possible for the next 10 years in my opinion.

Loren Soth