Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!esosun!jackson@freyja.css.gov From: jackson@freyja.css.gov (Jerry Jackson) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Message-ID: <281@esosun.UUCP> Date: 28 Nov 88 21:48:41 GMT References: <484@soleil.UUCP> <1654@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <1908@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1791@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <1918@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <44150@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Sender: news@esosun.UUCP Reply-To: jackson@freyja.css.gov (Jerry Jackson) Organization: SAIC, San Diego Lines: 27 In-reply-to: engelson@cs.yale.edu (Sean Philip Engelson) In article <44150@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>, engelson@cs (Sean Philip Engelson) writes: > >Of course not. Intelligent machines won't act much like humans at >all. They will have different needs, different feelings, different >goals, plans, desires for life than we. But they'll be no less >intelligent, thinking, feeling beings than we, for it. I can accept the needs, goals, and plans... but why does everyone assume that an intelligent machine would be a *feeling* being? I see no reason to assume that an IM would be capable of experiencing anything at all. This doesn't imply that it wouldn't be intelligent. For instance: some machines are already capable of distinguishing blue light from red. This doesn't mean that they have anything like our *experience* of blue. (Or pain, or sorrow, or pleasure... etc.) Personally, I think this is a good thing. I would rather not have a machine that I would be afraid to turn off for fear of harming *someone*. It does seem that our experience is rooted in some kind of electro-chemical phenomenon, but I think it is an incredible leap of faith to assume that logic circuits are all that is required :-). BTW: It is perfectly consistent to assume that only I experience anything. i.e. it seems other people can be explained quite well without resorting to notions of experience. I claim that it is very likely that this position would be accurate in the case of intelligent machines (at least... intelligent digital computers ;-) --Jerry Jackson