Resumen
Over the past few years a growing number of computing scientists and engineers have been turning to nature, seeking inspiration to augment capabilities of their artificial systems. The ultimate goal of bio-inspired system engineers is to create more adaptive systems, in which "adaptive" refers to a system's ability to undergo modifications according to changing circumstances, thus ensuring its continued functionality. With bio-inspired hardware the aim is to reduce the amount of human design necessary. The ultimate goal is to build a system that will evolve, develop and learn with no human intervention. The article intends to describe a number of current milestones and to trace some of the possible developments of the near future. Within the field of bio-inspired hardware, a major enabling technology is that of configurable circuits, and especially field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). FPGA are large, fast integrated circuits that can be modified or configured at almost any point by the end user.

Resumen
In October 1950, British logician and computing pioneer Alan Turing examined the possibility of intelligence embodied in a computer. He devised a chat-session imitation game as a tool for determining whether a computing machine might exhibit intelligent behavior. Over the past 50 years , much debate has ensued as to the validity of Turing's approach in diagnosing intelligence. Rather than add to this imbroglio, it is believed that 50 years after Turing's article it is timely to consider more directly the effects of success in building such an imitation device; granted that a computing machine passes the Turing test, it is questionable if intelligence alone would make it useful to its human creators. Circumventing altogether the debate on machine intelligence and on its certifiability via the Turing test, a machine that passes the test is branded with the sigil "Turing Chatterbox," Assuming the existence of machines so labelled, it is doubtful if these chatterboxes would be of any use.