On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> We knew you didn't accept this, so the rest of the argument is irrelevant >> to you. However, I'm still not sure despite multiple posts what your >> position is on how much of your brain function could be replaced by an >> appropriate machine. Presumably you agree that some of it can. For example, >> if your job is to repeatedly push a button then a computer could easily >> control a robot to perform this function. And this behaviour could be made >> incrementally more complicated, so that for example the robot would press >> the button faster if it heard the command "faster", if that were also part >> of your job. With a good enough computer, good enough I/O devices and good >> enough programming the robot could perform very complex tasks. You would say >> it still does only what it's programmed to do, but how far do you think >> given the most advanced technology it could get slotting into human society >> and fooling everyone into believing that it is human? What test would you >> devise in order to prove that it was not? > > > I think it would progress just like dementia or brain cancer as far as the > subject is concerned. They would experience increasing alienation from their > mind and body as more of their brain was converted to an automated > processing and control system. The extent to which that would translate into > behavior that doctors, family, and friends would notice depends entirely on > the quality of the technology used to destroy and replace the person. > > The test that I would use would be, as I have mentioned, to have someone be > walked off of their brain one hemisphere at a time, and then walked back on. > Ideally this process would be repeated several times for different > durations. That is the only test that could possibly work as far as I can > tell - of course it wouldn't prove success or failure beyond any theoretical > doubt, but it would be a pretty good indicator. I'm not talking about gradual brain replacement specifically but replacement of the whole person with an AI controlling a robot. We assume the machine is very technologically advanced. Progress in AI may have been slow over the past few decades but extrapolate that slow pace of change a thousand years into the future. Do you think you would still be able to distinguish the robot from the human, and if so what test would you use? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.