Pick your side
‘Am I strong or weak?’ , I heard Aldo mumbling one day. At the
beginning I did not understand what he meant, so I just thought it was a
malfunction of his system. But he kept asking the same question ‘Strong or
weak? Strong or weak?’ up to a point he became obsessed with it. That’s when I decided
he could use some help.
“Strong” AI seeks to create artificial persons: machines
that have all the mental powers we have, including phenomenal consciousness.
“Weak” AI, on the other hand, seeks to build
information-processing machines that appear to have the full mental repertoire
of human persons.
Poor Aldo, what a conundrum.
There has been a constant ‘’attack’’ from the philosophic
world against strong AI since it seems really difficult for our species to
accept or comprehend that an artificial animal or person would have
consciousness. There are two basic arguments used for this reason, the Chinese
Room Argument (CRA) and the Gödelian Argument. I will need Aldo’s help to
explain the first one. Let’s suppose that I am Greek and as a result I speak the greek language fluently. On the other hand Aldo is made in the USA and cannot understand a
single greek letter. However we manage to have long conversations all the time.
How is this possible? According to the RCA, inside Aldo’s head there is a
mini-Aldo, who likewise doesn’t understand a single greek word. What happens
inside Aldo’s head is that each phrase I use is presented written to mini-Aldo.
Here comes the most important part: mini-Aldo is equipped with a book containing
explicitly detailed instructions on how to handle each incoming phrase in order
to give a suitable response to each question. Therefore Aldo and I have normal
conversations, but Aldo doesn’t understand a single thing. The second one
claims that ‘’minds cannot be explained as machines and machines are inherently
inferior’’. Consequently there will never be an artificial intelligence with
the capabilities of the human brain.
-‘Do you believe this is true?’
-Of course no Aldo. Don’t let these malevolent arguments
trouble you. I am sure you understand much more and you can master many more skills
than they think. Let me use some visual proof in your defence.
‘’As it turned out, the new century would arrive without a
single machine able to converse at even the toddler level’’.
Imagine a fusion of the two previous examples.
Hmm..
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