From the readings, what is artificial intelligence and how is it similar or different from what you consider to be human intelligence?
According to the article in the readings What is artificial intelligence? on computerworld.com, artificial intelligence is described as “a sub-field of computer science. Its goal is to enable the development of computers that are able to do things normally done by people – in particular, things associated with people acting intelligently.” Artificial intelligence is similar to human intelligence in that it is supposed to enable a man made machine to make choices and do the activities humans routinely do in an intelligent manner, in other words not randomly but with reason and logic. They are often able to learn and adapt, two very “human” characteristics. However, it is still not the same as human intelligence. Human intelligence stems from a natural living being, whereas artificial intelligence stems from a man made machine, and that difference is an important one to keep in mind.
Are AlphaGo, Deep Blue, and Watson proof of the viability of artificial intelligence or are they just interesting tricks or gimmicks?
AlphaGo, Deep Blue and Watson are immense strides in the field of artificial intelligence. They proved that artificial intelligence can be made to be so sophisticated at a particular task that it can perform that task better than a human. And not just any human, but the best human in the world at that activity. However, an important thing to keep in mind is that AlphaGo, Deep Blue and Watson were created to play Go, Chess and Jeopordy! respectively. While these are all impressive feats of engineering, two things are true: their human opponents came in to their game severely underestimating the opposition, and these games are basically one task – they don’t really mean that any of these computers can replace a normal everyday human. So, in my opinion, these three are still in the category of tricks and gimmicks. However, given the rapid and sharp rise in the abilities of robots, it is not inconceivable to see in the future there might well be a robot that could replace an intelligent human being. So I think these three robots are at the same time proof of the future viability of artificial intelligence, but are right now just interesting gimmicks.
Is the Turing Test a valid measure of intelligence or is the Chinese Room a good counter argument?
I think that the Chinese Room is a great argument and I think that it is true that just being able to execute a program to carry on a conversation does not mean that the computer executing the program has intelligence, understanding or consciousness. However, the Turing Test is still a scary test for a computer to pass. Even if the computer cannot truly understand what it is doing, the fact that it is able to fool humans into thinking it is a sentient being is harm enough. The potential for abuse in this situation is very high. We are seeing some of the side effects programs that can carry on a conversation with a person are having on the public. For example, there have been numerous cases of people cheated out of money or personal information by such robots on online dating sites like Tinder. Hence, I believe that the Turing Test doesn’t quite meet the standard of a valid measure of intelligence but certainly meets the standard for cause of concern.
Finally, could a computing system ever be considered a mind? Are humans just biological computers? What are the ethical implications are either idea?
I do not think a computer system could ever be considered a mind simply because of the Chinese Room argument. I believe that it is truly impossible for a Computer to gain true understanding and consciousness. True understanding and consciousness would imply awareness of self and surroundings, and a questioning nature of the meaning of life and existence. Because no human has the answers to these questions, or indeed a detailed understanding of how the human mind works, it is impossible for us to replicate that onto a man made machine.
The ethical implications of considering a computer a mind are quite considerable. Most importantly, we would have to consider a computer a sentient being, and hence treat them as such, which would drastically change our way of dealing with computers. It is conceivable if computers have understanding, they would be aware of their rights, and we would have to reward them for doing tasks. They would have the ability to feel bored, sad, happy, angry and so on, so we would have to choose the tasks we assigned to them carefully. These are important things to keep in mind on our quest to make computers think like humans.
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