Matthew Archer (H3)

 The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

            In an increasingly digital world, the topic of artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly more significant in our daily lives. As computer scientist are attempting to create a computer that can truly be considered intelligent, it is important for us to understand what this means for our society, as well as the implications this could have on how we define “personhood”. There have been many philosophers that have contributed their thoughts on this subject, and today we will look at some of these people.

 

This discussion was started with Alan Turing, in his essay “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” where he proposes the idea of the “imitation game”. The imitation game was designed to be a test of artificial intelligence, where in short, a person would be communicating with both a computer and a real person, while trying to distinguish which is which. If they could not distinguish which is which, the computer wins, and can be considered intelligent, due to it being intelligent enough to believably pass as a human. This test, which is also often referred to as the Turing test, has been extremely influential in the realm of artificial intelligence, and has been the starting point for how we look at the philosophy of artificial intelligence, though it does have its critics. One such critic is philosopher John Searle, who devised the Chinese room thought experiment to explain his idea. This thought experiment, proposed in his essay “Minds, Brains, and Programs,” compares the Turing test to a room where a man is sent messages in Chinese, which he doesn’t speak, and has to respond to them. He is given instructions on how to respond to these letters, and without knowing what they mean or what he is saying, can convince the people sending him the messages that he knows Chinese. While in actuality, he doesn’t understand what he is saying in Chinese, and is rather just following the instructions given to him. This can be compared to the Turing test and implies that just being able to convince a person of a machine’s intelligence, doesn’t mean a machine really is intelligent if the machine doesn’t understand what it is doing, like the man in the room.

            Another significant moment in the development of the philosophies surrounding Artificial Intelligence was the Dartmouth Conference. The term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined in the proposal of this conference by John McCarthy, one of the organizers of the event. In his proposal, he stated, “We propose that a 2-month, 10-man study of artificial intelligence be carried out during the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. An attempt will be made to find how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves. We think that a significant advance can be made in one or more of these problems if a carefully selected group of scientists work on it together for a summer.” This workshop is widely considered to be the event that cemented artificial intelligence as a field of study, leading to further developments. Without this conference, artificial intelligence wouldn’t be able to progress like it has been, and we would never see true intelligence in a robot. 

            Another Significant Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence is William Lycan. He felt that you could make a robot who is a person. To show this, he devised the concept of a robot named Harry. In this thought experiment, Harry looks and acts just like a human. He has emotions like we do, he has hobbies, and other generally “human” things. He is practically indistinguishable from humans, but he is not human, he is a robot. Lycans argument with this is that since Harry has all of the aspects of a human, even though he isn’t one, he still has personhood. His argument is that where he comes from isn’t enough of a basis to deny Harry Personhood, and that it would be immoral to do so. The Harry thought experiment is an interesting one, that brings a new perspective on the argument.

            I’d like to conclude saying that due to the uncertainty of how artificial intelligence is going to develop in the coming years, it is impossible to know what the future holds. Artificial Intelligence is a rapidly advancing field, and it may be possible that it is truly able to be created. If so, these concepts may become the forefront of our discussions, and the ideas we decide in regard to an android’s personhood could have major impacts on the future. Until then, we can ponder these concepts, and watch as artificial intelligence gets closer to becoming intelligent. There are a few interesting recourses regarding this topic. Firstly, this video from CrashCourse on YouTube is an interesting look at some of the concepts mentioned here. This article written by AI is also very interesting and shows how it is advancing.

 

Other Works Cited:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Searles-Chinese-Room-1_fig1_334363118

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/lets-learn-about-artificial-intelligence