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The idea of a thinking machine is an amazing one. It would be like humans creating artificial life, only more impressive because we would be creating consciousness. Or would we ? It's tempting to think that a machine that could think would think like us. But a bit of reflection shows that's not an inevitable conclusion.
To begin with, we'd better be clear about what we mean by "think". A comparison with human thinking might be intuitive, but what about animal thinking? Does a chimpanzee think? Does a crow? Does an octopus ?
The philosopher Thomas Nagel said that there was "something that it is like" to have conscious experiences. There's something that it is like to see the colour red, or to go water skiing. We are more than just our brain states.
Could there ever be "something that it's like" to be a thinking machine? In an imagined conversation with the first intelligent machine, a human might ask "Are you conscious?", to which it might reply, "How would I know?".
http://theconversation.com/what-does-it-mean-to-think-and-could-a-machine-ever-do-it-51316
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(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Friday January 08 2016, @03:27PM
We already know that our thoughts, aka the voice in your head, is in control of nothing. We have no idea what thought is used for, other than we know it is not directly in control of anything and that all your decisions are made before your thoughts come up with the reasoning behind that decision. So if all decisions are made subconsciously, why would we build a machine based around the illusion which is human conscious thought?