robert@hpfclq.UUCP (06/10/84)
Is a soul going to be the real issue here? > I submit that the concept of "soul" is irrelevant only if AI is doomed > to utter failure. Use your imagination and consider a computer program > that exhibits many of the characteristics of a human being in > its ability to reason, to converse, and to be creative and unexpected in > its actions. How will you AI-ers defend yourself if a distinguished > theologian asserts that G-d has granted to your computer program a soul? To those AIers who don't believe in God it probably won't matter much what a distinguished theologain asserts. I think many that beleive in God will wonder why God would come down and bless a computer program with a soul. They will doubt the theologian. And for those that do believe that the program has a soul, what are they to defend themselves from? Are they to defend God for doing it? Or they may just agree with the theologian saying, "Yep, that sure is neat that it has a soul." I think a bigger problem will be empathy for the program. A program that is your friend could be just as hard to kill as any other being. This could be particularly true of people who are only end users of these friend programs and don't understand how it works. It is hard to guess the psycological effects of man-machine freindships. It is a very lonely world and a computer might be your only freind in the world! > If he might be right, the program, and its hardware must not be destroyed. Is cremation bad because that destroys the hardware of something that had a soul? > Perhaps it should not be altered either, lest its soul be lost. > The casual destruction, recreation and development of computer programs > containing souls will horrify many people. Altering such as in psycotherapy for humans and mods to code or inference tables in programs is bad? Operating on people or making mods to hardware is bad? I would imagine not. WHat we do have is the possibility of of modifying and experimenting with models of human psycologies to a degree never before available. What are the issues involved in the torture of beings created out of software? The indescrimenant experimentation on man made psyches may bring about a new form of the antivivisectionist movement. This is all independant of the soul issue for many people. "If it really appears to be human how can you kill it?" will be the underlying measure I think. Again, who knows how the intevening history will condition man to the thought of man made intelligence. > You will face demonstrations, > destruction of laboratories, and government interference of the worst kind. Nice drama here. > Start saving up now, for a defense fund for the first AI-er accused by > a district attorney of soul-murder. Now I speak from the point of view of someone who doesn't hold much stock in the idea of a soul. I do believe in the importance of the human as a thinking, feeling being so we may really agree. A lot of what you said seems to be all based on the issue of a soul. I'm just not convienced that that many people will see it as an issue of the soul. I can see more easily the DA above arguing that the man-made intelligence is alive and therefore can be murdered. > On second thought, you have nothing to fear; no one in AI is really trying > to make computers act like humans, right? You bet AIers are out to make computers act like humans, bit by bit and byte by byte. They are also studying even more general concepts. What is intelligence? What is the nature of thought? This goes beyond just making a machine act like a human. -Robert (animal) Heckendorn hplabs!hpfcla!robert
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (06/14/84)
References: Philip Kahn, in his discussion of souls and essences, writes: >> A "soul," like the concept of "essence," is undefinable. >> The problem of "cognition" is far more relevent to the study of AI because >> it can be defined within some domain... Whether "cognition" >> constitutes a "soul" is again not relevent..." I submit that the concept of "soul" is irrelevant only if AI is doomed to utter failure. Use your imagination and consider a computer program that exhibits many of the characteristics of a human being in its ability to reason, to converse, and to be creative and unexpected in its actions. How will you AI-ers defend yourself if a distinguished theologian asserts that G-d has granted to your computer program a soul? If he might be right, the program, and its hardware must not be destroyed. Perhaps it should not be altered either, lest its soul be lost. The casual destruction, recreation and development of computer programs containing souls will horrify many people. You will face demonstrations, destruction of laboratories, and government interference of the worst kind. Start saving up now, for a defense fund for the first AI-er accused by a district attorney of soul-murder. On second thought, you have nothing to fear; no one in AI is really trying to make computers act like humans, right? - Toby Robison (not Robinson!) allegra!eosp1!robison decvax!ittvax!eosp1!robison princeton!eosp1!robison