Thought of the Day - Right Brained Computing

First it was widley belived that machines couldn't replace people at making things (pottery, textiles etc), then the industrial revolution happened. While the machines would never be quite as good at making some things (hand-crafted is still seen as a good thing) they do most of the making in the world today.

More recently it was thought that machines couldn't replace people doing knowledge based tasks that required left brain thinking and again they have been proved wrong again. If a computer can win at chess, properly programed it can probably replace a person doing anthing relying on procedure, decisions and memory. This is still progressing and there is still a gap where people are required.


Is the way forward to leap-frog people working on automating the left brained activites and start trying to automate more right brained work?

I suppose this is where researchers in artificial intelligence are going but is there a simpler approach? Does a computer have to be able to think and be self-aware to create? If a million monkey's at a million type writers will eventually come up with the works of shakespeare and a computer can do the same work in a considerably shorter period of time, is it not just a matter of selecting the best version. As the old saying goes; "ideas are like a**holes, everyone has one", surely this means that creativity is simply selecting the good ideas from the bad.