We Cannot Create Artificial Intelligence via Computation Alone

Thanks. Con’s Arguments Argument for Functionalism Con presents an argument based on the intuitive notion of functionalism. If one acts like they have a mind, they must have a mind. First, this is only a Prima Facie argument. The Chinese Room argument attempts to refute this principle, so if it succeeds this argument fails. However there are other ways of refuting this argument. The inverted color spectrum thought experiment does so. Imagine two people were looking at the same color, but one of them sees color inverted. The two people would be functionally the same. They call the color by the same name. They receive the same inputs and produce the same outputs, but they are not having the same mental states. They both quack like ducks, but one of them isn’t a duck. Not only is this a priori possible, it is a posteriori possible. Color blindness works because our we have 3 cone cells for each wavelength of color. Long, medium and short wavelength processing ganglion cells. When one is color blind to long wavelength color their long wavelength ganglion cell is replaced by another medium wavelength ganglion cell and visa versa [1]. This means it is possible for one to have a medium wavelength cell in their long wavelength area and a long wavelength cell in their medium making those colors inverted. The freaky thing is you or I could have this condition and never know it, our entire understanding of color could be inverted. We would be functionally and behaviorally the same, yet be different. Con commits a bifurcation fallacy as there is a third option to the dilemma. If one accepts that brains cause minds, then if someone has a brain or something has the same causal power as a brain, they would have a mind. This is known regardless of behavior or function. The argument fails The Morality of AI This argument is irrelevant and commits the fallacy of appealing to consequences. We are debating the descriptive question if we can create AI via computation alone, not the prescriptive question of how we should treat them. I can easily accept the idea that a robot should be treated kindly yet believe it’s not conscious without contradiction. Defense of the Chinese Room Argument The Systems Reply First, if the room doesn’t understand the language, then what does? The room is functionally equivalent to a man (or a room) who understands Chinese. According to your first argument, if it walks like a duck it is a duck and if the man doesn’t understand Chinese you have to concede that something does. Early defenders of the systems reply did concede that the room understood Chinese “When I first heard this [the systems reply] I was in a debate and I said to the guy that presented it “You mean the room understands Chinese” and the guy said “Yes the room understands Chinese”. Well I admire the courage” [2] - John Searle One of the first defenders of the systems reply Ray Kurzweil also conceded this “....if the system displays the apparent capacity to understand Chinese “it would have to, indeed, understand Chinese” [3] This shows the absurdity of the rebuttal, but doesn’t point out what’s wrong with it. The real problem with the systems reply is that it seems the physical room and book is irrelevant. Have the man memorize the book and walk out of the room. The man is now the system, yet there is still no understanding of Chinese. Connectionist reply Before I go any further, I will quickly explain the Church-Turing thesis. In simple terms, a Turing machine can be realized in a variety of ways (water pipes, notches, cats and mice are some examples) and one Turing machine can do the job of another [4]. By Church’s thesis a connectionist machine can do the same job as a normal Von Neumann machine, but the connectionist machine is faster because it processes its information in parallel. Searle has talked about using connectionist programs on the normal Von Neumann computers at Berkeley because connectionist machines were too expensive [5]. My point here is connectionism is only faster than using a Von Neumann machine, it doesn’t add any more computing power other than that. Connectionism is therefore not exempt from the CR. Then the argument boils down to “What if we simulate the neurons on the computer?”. Simulating neurons on a computer will only get to a model of the brain, not a mind itself. For example, if one wanted to make a machine that digests pizza, nobody would suggest we simulate digestion on a computer because that would just be a model. Making a model of a brain on alcohol doesn’t make the computer drunk. To better understand, recall the Church-Turing thesis. We can create a Turing machine out of anything. If we were to use water pipes, we can say if a pipe is running that is a 1, if it’s not that’s a 0. If we have tons of water pipes that are positioned in a way to do the same computational algorithm that simulates being drunk, the water pipes aren’t drunk. The only thing we would get is a model, not actual mental content. Wait Till Next Year reply Con talks about the progress of computing and claims it is too much of a claim to state AI is impossible. This rebuttal strawmans the argument. The first axiom of the formal argument is “(A1) Programs are formal (syntactic).” This isn’t a claim about any current state of technology, it’s a claim about its definition. The Chinese room attempts to show computation cannot create a mind by the very definition of computation. The next step in faster computing or quantum computing is irrelevant because it’s still computation which is still by definition syntactic. The Chinese Room argument remains standing. My opponents argument against the resolution and his objections against my argument fail. Back to Con Sources [1] http://www.nhs.uk... [2] The Teaching Company, Philosophy of Mind by John Searle Lecture 3: Strong Artificial Intelligence [3] Richards, J. W. (ed.), 2002, Are We Spiritual Machines: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI, [4] http://mathworld.wolfram.com... [5] The Teaching Company, Philosophy of Mind by John Searle Lecture 5: Can A Machine Think?