Artificial Intelligence - First Draft

Artificial Intelligence

Photo Credit: GeekWire

"Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."                                          - The Dartmouth Proposal

This is a line from the famous Dartmouth Proposal, which is credited with introducing the term artificial intelligence.  As this statement suggests, many aspects of human intelligence can be simulated by machines.  This is evident in the AI that can beat master chess players, hold convincing conversations, and perform many actions a human could perform, but machines have yet to simulate the more abstract qualities of human intelligence like free-will, thought, and consciousness.  This is a possibility that is the foundation of various movies like her, Blade Runner, and I, Robot and has ignited much interest in the field of AI.  This possibility has also drawn much philosophical interest, looking to truly figure out whether this possibility could become a reality.  This report will look into some of these philosophical arguments.

Visual Interpretation of the Turing test

Alan Turing and the Turing Test

Alan Turing was an English mathematician, computer scientist, and creator of the Turing test.  The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to human intelligence.  Turing does this by defining intelligence with a simple conversation.  A modern version of the Turing test would take place in a online chat room where one participant is a human, one participant is a human observer, and one participant is a computer program.  If the observer cannot consistently tell which participate is the computer program, the computer program wins.  If one were to have a conversation with someone, it would be a polite convention to say that they were intelligent.  Turing extends this polite convention to machines by saying that if a machine can answer questions, using the same words a human would, then the machine would be considered as intelligent as a human. 

Searle's Chinese Room

The Chinese Room Photo Credit: Neurologicablog

John Searle argues against the Turing test by proposing the Chinese Room argument.  In his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", Searle asks us to consider a thought experiment: suppose there is a computer program that passes the Turing test and demonstrates general intelligent action. The program can converse in fluent Chinese. Write the program instructions on cards and give them to a person who does not speak Chinese. Lock the person into a room and have him follow the instructions on the cards. He will copy out Chinese characters and pass them in and out of the room through a slot. From the outside, it will appear that the Chinese room contains a fully intelligent person who speaks Chinese.
Does anyone or anything in the room truly understands Chinese? Does anything in that room have the mental state of understanding, or which has conscious awareness of what is being discussed in Chinese?  Searle says if you look at all the pieces of the room, it is not evident since the man does not speak Chinese nor do the instructions on the cards.  Searle then concludes that the Chinese room, or any other physical symbol system, cannot have a mind.

(Sections below will be expanded in the final draft)

Symbol Processing

Symbol Processing implies that human thought can be broken down into expressions that a machine can then simulate.
Symbol Processing has philosophical roots in Thomas Hobbes, who claimed reasoning was "nothing more than reckoning", Gottfried Leibniz, who attempted to create a logical calculus of all human ideas, Hume, who thought perception could be reduced to "atomic impressions", and Immanuel Kant, who analyzed all experience as controlled by formal rules.

Implicit Skill

Hubert Dreyfus argued that human intelligence depended primarily on implicit skill rather than symbolic manipulation found in symbol processing.  He believe these skills would never be captured in formal rules.

Other Arguments

According to dualism, the human is non-physical and cannot be explained in purely physical terms. This philosophy suggests humans have a unreplicable characteristic that cannot be simulated by machines.  
According to materialism, the mind can be explained physically, which leaves open the possibility of minds that are produced artificially.  This philosophy suggests the human mind can be quantified into symbols and simulated by a machine.

Quiz Questions

1. Who created the Turning Test?
2. What proposal coined the term Artificial Intelligence?

Discussion Questions

1.  Do you believe an artificial being could become "human"?
2.  If you broke human thought down, do you think it would be just chemical and        electrical signals or is there something more to us?

Sources

Alan Turning, The British Library, https://www.bl.uk/people/alan-turing