On 9/13/06, Russell Wallace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 9/13/06, Charles D Hixson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Russell Wallace wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > Mind you, I don't believe it will be feasible to create conscious or
> > self-willed (e.g. RPOP) AI in the foreseeable future. But that's
> > another matter.
> That depends entirely on how you define "conscious" and "self-willed".
> For many definitions the robots that sense their electric charge, and
> plug themselves in to recharge are both conscious and self-willed,
> albeit on an elementary level.
>
Okay, suffice it to say those aren't the definitions I'm using.
If the robots went "hey, bloody hell we shouldn't have to rely on these
stupid little batteries" and swiped their owner's credit card and used it to
phone an electrician to rig up a cable they could drag around with them,
that's what I'd call self-willed.
If they came up with an original theory of the meaning of life that meant
it was important for them to do this, then I wouldn't have any great
difficulty believing they were conscious :)
Not to be pedantic, but someone in a foreign country where they didn't
speak the language would have difficulty carrying out those tasks, yet
I'm pretty sure all the foreign speaking people in the world are
conscious ;P
I also believe there would be people that, put in the above situation,
wouldn't be smart enough, or have the foresight to do either. They
just go through life fulfilling their basal urges at a very short
temporal scale.
--
-Joel
"Wish not to seem, but to be, the best."
-- Aeschylus
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