What would be your views regarding artificial intelligence in terms of your religious belief?

[Helm]

You can see we may not be talking about something that would happen in the far distant future. Could such a things ever have true free will of their own? And would it be possible for them to have a metaphysical soul of some description? Or would such a thing be reserved only solely for humans and/or organic intelligence? Or is it more the case that they wouldn't have souls and neither do we? If you believe in reincarnation could you become something like this in your next life? And are there any religious teachings that in any way deal with this particular subject? And would it be ethical to use sentient robots as slave labour and servants? Would they deserve rights and freedoms? And if we were able to make such a thing without the help of some kind of metaphysical component would that suggest thst we ourselves would just be living machines?

[Gromovnik]

Just a machine. Should be treated as a toaster or a TV set.

[Helm]

Just a machine. Should be treated as a toaster or a TV set.

Even if it had the same level of self awareness as ourselves?

[Gromovnik]

Even if it had the same level of self awareness as ourselves?

Even then. Still a toaster, still here to be used.

[cfmonkey45]

This brings to light a few theological and philosophical topics:

1. Do humans have souls? If yes, then the sapience of anything else is irrelevant. If no, then we have an interesting debacle.
2. Is there a God, and, more importantly, did he directly create humanity, or simply create the universe? If Yes to both, then this is irrelevant, since God will probably only deal with his creation. If no, then we have an interesting debacle.
3. Are these equivalent to people? Depends. I doubt that someone will invest enough money to making fully functioning robots to function daily as humans, so the very aspects of sapience that we can empathize with are absent. Moreover, they are facsimiles, copies, and artificial constructs, bent to the will of fundamentally human creators. By nature, this is a conflict of interest in terms of all forms of legality and philosophy. They were created for a specific reason by a person who, probably, had an agenda. Thus, they wouldn't be recognized as equals, perhaps ever.

As a Christian, I have little input, other than to remark how interesting it is that the things we could spend billions of dollars, and decades of research, occur naturally within a few weeks for humans, and how interesting it is that we have the creativity and intellect to even attempt such a thing.

[MaximiIian]

1. Do humans have souls? If yes, then the sapience of anything else is irrelevant.

Only if you for discount other organisms from having souls. I do not.

I think that true, strong AI is probably not going to happen for a long time. It's a completely different ballpark than a simple intuitive program with voice-recognition. True AI is indistinguishable from the human mind; if one believe that the soul is the mind, then AI's have souls.

I have a more complex view of a soul than that; I believe that the soul exists primarily in a spiritual plane. Getting straight to the point, I think that true, sapient AI's would have a soul, regardless of their body.

[Helm]

I think that true, strong AI is probably not going to happen for a long time.

I'll give it 50 years.

[MaximiIian]

I'll give it 50 years.

Based on what? This is the real world, not fictionland. You can't just add water and get instant AI.

[Helm]

Based on what? This is the real world, not fictionland. You can't just add water and get instant AI.

"By extrapolating an exponential growth of technology over several decades, futurist Raymond Kurzweil predicted that Turing test-capable computers would be manufactured in the near future. In 1990, he set the year around 2020.[59] By 2005, he had revised his estimate to 2029.[60]"

I've added a couple of extra decades to be safe, but absolutely certainly by the end of this century.





You see what 50 years can do?

[Helm]

Unlike humans who evolved naturally over millions of years robots/androids would be a literal product of intelligent design. Though they are evolving in a sense a we try and figure out how to make them work. Perhaps you can only have true free will if you evolved randomly rather than have a designer.

[Whatacad]

How do you test for self awareness?

[Helm]

How do you test for self awareness?

That's a good question, one way is the Turing Test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

But then the non-aware holograms in a holodeck simulation in Star Trek could pass that test. We also assume animals are aware on some level even if we can't converse with them like a human.



That would pass the test if it weren't fake.

[Tiberius Tosi]

Until we can make something that is biological that is intelligent by ourselves, I don't think we will be able to create anything with free will or anything of that sort. With robots, their "free will" and "choices" are simply mathematical equations made to emulate our own free will and choices, not really giving the robot control or any actual understanding of what is going on. Understanding things through numbers to make a logical "choice" (if it can even be called that because then it is pre-determined) is not exactly a real choice. A human does not have to make a choice through a mathematical problem or programming, they actualy have complete free will. No matter how well they emulate free will and choice, they still lack the real emotion to do so for it to be real.

[Helm]

A human does not have to make a choice through a mathematical problem or programming

Or do we?

[Tiberius Tosi]

Or do we?

We learn and adapt, robots do not do so necessarily. If you read on commonsense knowledge of a robot, something which humans have an almost infinite knowledge of and capacity of learning, a robot with AI must have each commonsense knowledge programmed it into it because it cannot use reasoning to pick up on things and learn it by itself. Also, robots cannot tap into the sub-conscious feelings that humans get, like when a person thinks that something just does not feel right. If a human hears music for the first time, they may know that it just does not seem right, whereas a robot would need past experiences on which to base its analysis, otherwise it could make no judgment on the issue.

[Helm]

We learn and adapt, robots do not do so necessarily. If you read on commonsense knowledge of a robot, something which humans have an almost infinite knowledge of and capacity of learning, a robot with AI must have each commonsense knowledge programmed it into it because it cannot use reasoning to pick up on things and learn it by itself. Also, robots cannot tap into the sub-conscious feelings that humans get, like when a person thinks that something just does not feel right. If a human hears music for the first time, they may know that it just does not seem right, whereas a robot would need past experiences on which to base its analysis, otherwise it could make no judgment on the issue.

Would the difference be purely down to the physical construction of our brains or is it because we have some kind of soul that a machine can't have?

[Tacitursa]

This thread reminds me of the film Bicentennial man with robin williams, He begins life as an A.I Robot but as technology progresses he gets an organic brain and organs and has all kinds of human experiences and emotions then at the end on his death bed he is talking to a human court of some kind and they agree he is a human and let him die as a human.

Good movie and im sure with advances in nano tech , A.I and biology we'll have robots very similar to that one day. The Robot Sunny from I R Robot with will smith is another good example.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

You can see we may not be talking about something that would happen in the far distant future.

I don't think true intelligence can be created in a robot, only a close mimic. But assuming this is possible:

Could such a things ever have true free will of their own?

It depends on what you mean by free will. The robot will only be able to do what its programmed to do (which can include learning new things and/or modifying the programming). So it may be able to do things against your wishes and what it deems in its best interests, but as far as having free will like a human, I don't think that's possible.

And would it be possible for them to have a metaphysical soul of some description?

No.

And are there any religious teachings that in any way deal with this particular subject?

Not really as far as I know.

And would it be ethical to use sentient robots as slave labour and servants?

Yes. Think Star Wars

Would they deserve rights and freedoms?

No

[Tiberius Tosi]

And would it be ethical to use sentient robots as slave labour and servants? Would they deserve rights and freedoms?

I would be fine using a robot as a slave labor, they can't feel any pain and they are perfectly "content" (if such an emotion is even attainable, which it is doubtful it even truly is at the moment) with what they are doing, as it is what they were programmed to do. We use machines for labor right now, and really what separates a drill that does its function of spinning when you press a button and a robot who can hammer a nail when you command it to?

I don't think they would deserve any rights, I can pick my computer up, throw it on the ground and burn it if I want to, even though it can "think" and people would just say "wow that guy is a moron for wasting so much money". In my opinion it would be much the same with a robot.

[PacSubCom]

Now imagine it is possible to create human bodies with no free will, biological automatons that "are perfectly content" with doing work or being sex-dolls. From birth.

Just another machine?