Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> I think the problem is not whether computers "should be designed to be > sentient," so much as "can they be restrained from it." > May-bee. I have read various articles and books about this. Some experts believe that sentience is an emergent quality, others say it would have be programmed, and it will not happen on its own. I do not know enough about artificial intelligence to judge which is right. Arthur Clarke was very interested in this question. He asked the world's leading experts. I think he got the same impression I have, which is that they do not know yet. Putting aside sentience, people and other animals a number of emotional qualities that I do not expect to see in artificially intelligent computers, unless we deliberately program them. They include: love, fear, jealousy, the desire for self preservation (that is, fear of death), the urge to dominate other entities, the urge to accumulate power, status and material goods, and so on. Needless to say, I cannot begin to imagine a machine that would want to become a human being or have sex with a human, along the lines of the movie "Bicentennial Man." (I thought that movie stank.) I think it would be morally wrong to deliberately program such emotions. I can't think of any any advantage they would give us. - Jed
