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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