Turing Test

I just watched the most recent Sarah Conner episode (where Riley dies). Spoiler Alert. I started thinking about Cameron and her relationship with John. Here’s the thought process…

Cameron is a machine.
Machines can’t have emotions.
Love is an emotion.
Therefore, Cameron can’t love John.

Simple enough. Cameron can’t love John.

But wait.

There’s a concept called the “Turing Test”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

Basically, it says, if you talk with a machine for a prolonged period of time, and cannot tell whether you are talking to a human or a machine, the machine is considered intelligent. Now, that takes the hugely complex world of artificial intelligence (AI) and reduces it to one sentence, so a lot is lost along the way. But you get the idea.

Cameron has been programmed with vast amounts of information on humans, human emotions, human interaction, human psychology and physiology. True, she doesn’t “feel” any of these things, but from an outward observer she can mimic being a human very well.

Cameron says all the things a person in love says, does all the things, and reacts in the right ways, including internal conflicts leading to a twitchy hand. In short, there is no way to tell she is not in love. Is she considered to be in love?