SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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
[Related Video]: They're Made Out of Meat
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 08 2016, @03:54PM
And yes, that means I too think that machines will eventually think. We've had less than a century working seriously on the problem, and technology shows no signs of running out of new paths for potential improvement. I'm perfectly prepared to not see anything in my lifetime, but I'm sure in a few more centuries cyborgs will be laughing at how naive we 20th century meat machines were.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves