As computers become able to think for themselves, a number of ethical issues will arise that could affect the whole industry.

Computers could achieve their own legal status and be considered as a person in law.

Although this seems far-fetched, we already have computers that can think for themselves (albeit within parameters).

They can learn from their actions and act on things they have learned. They can also reproduce themselves without human or any other kind of intervention.

At what point does a computer fulfil the requirements to be considered a person?

What tests does it have to pass to become "human"?

How long before we need to acknowledge it deserves the protection of the law and should not be treated like a mechanical slave?

Enigma codebreaker Alan Turing, based at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, was fascinated by the philosophical problems posed by computers.

He devised the Turing Test, which revolves around whether a computer can successfully impersonate a human.

In a 1950 paper called Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mr Turing described a test, in which one or more human judges interview computers and humans, side by side, using remote terminals so the judges won't be prejudiced against the computers for lacking a human appearance.

The communication between the human judges and the candidates, computers and their human foils, is similar to an online chat using instant messaging.

The computer, as well as its human counterpart, tries to convince the human judges of its humanity.

If the human judges are unable to reliably unmask the computer as an impostor then it is considered to have demonstrated humanlevel intelligence.

Some eminent scientists and philosophers are claiming a computer, or some kind of machine intelligence, will pass the Turing Test by 2029 and large bets have been placed on the outcome.

One was placed by artificial intelligence expert Ray Kurtzweil who has promised to donate any winnings to charity.

Mr Kurtzweil's bet is held by an organisation set up to encourage long-term advanced thinking.

Called Long Bets, it can be found at www.longbets.org and offers people the opportunity to raise awareness of futuristic predictive thinking and, at the same time, put their money where their mouth is.

Having seen the advances of the past 20 years and the extent to which computers now dominate our lives, I don't find it at all surprising Mr Kurtzweil has risked $10,000 on this bet.

His money looks pretty safe to me.

Computers are closer to reproducing human reactions than ever before. Speech modules are now available that sound just like a real person. Predictive text technology such as that used in mobile phones allows computers to speed up the speech processing to a point where humans just cannot keep up.

Robotics is a science that has never looked so good.

Technologists and scientists all over the world are vying for the opportunity to create ever more exciting robots.

It won't be too long before the very first "house robots" go on sale in the UK.

Prototypes are already working hard in Japanese homes.

The real problem comes when a robot/ computer gets old.

If it has passed a Turing test, will it then be classified as a person? Will turning it off be classified as machine slaughter?

Quite a few people are already thinking about the possibilities.

www.turing.org.uk