[thoms_a]

I've asked very young students what they think a computer is and how it works. There's always at least one student who correctly replies: "It's a machine that does what someone told it to do".

Of course modern computing devices are absurdly complex and intricate machines all the way from silicon to software, but the basic mechanism is easily grasped by children. For all their complexity, computers are still just programmable calculators.

[CamperBob2]

There's always at least one student who correctly replies: "It's a machine that does what someone told it to do".

That's correct, right up until someone tells a computer to beat a 9-dan Go master, but not how to do it.