KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch") (12/05/86)
From: mcvax!ukc!rjf@seismo.css.gov (R.J.Faichney)
... to ascribe consciousness to something man-made, no matter how perfect
it's performance, will always require an effort of will. Nor could it
ever be intellectually justified. ... You may be willing to identify
with something which can do anything you can. I am not. And, though this
is obviously sheer guesswork, I'm willing to bet a lot of money that the
vast majority of people (*not* of AIers) would be with me.
Don't forget that "performance" doesn't just mean that it can play
chess or build a radio as well as you can. It also means it could write
one of these net messages, claiming that it is conscious but that it has
no way to be sure that anyone else is, etc.
The net is an excellent medium for Turing tests. Other than our
knowledge of the current state of the art, we have no evidence that any
given contributor is human rather than a machine.
Let me play the Turing game in reverse for a moment, and ask if you
would bet a lot of money that nobody would regard a computer as
conscious if it were to have written this message?
...Keith