Literally Computer-generated Content

HAL 9000; Skynet; GLaDOS; the Matrix; Jane; science-fiction has been warning us for years; computers are becoming sentient and will rule us all! Well, no, not really. Least not yet anyway. It would seem we are close though.

This past week on Jeopardy!, IBM's supercomputer Watson dominated some of the games very best players. Watson is apparently capable of understanding and replicating the nuances of human speech, allowing it to "think" and respond to intricately worded Jeopardy! questions. So I guess my next question is if it can answer these kind of questions, how much of a leap would it be for me to ask Watson to churn out a research paper on say... George Washington? It doesn't seem to me like it would be much of one, but here comes the next question: who holds the copyright on a paper written not with a computer, but by a computer?

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