Philosophy 101 Unit 1

Here is a picture of a human robot that was created several years ago. I encourage you to look at the picture. When I first saw it, the picture was in a newspaper of the two in a subway. I could not differentiate the two.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/04/27/when-robots-attack-what-does-the-future-hold/

Here is a video showing the movements and abilities the creators were able to manipulate mechanically on this robot to make him appear more human:

and if that doesn’t work, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RksP_gAqSh0

Now in terms of believing what something is based on “what it seems,” which I believe is a Descartes-ism, here is a video from youtube that a human appears to be a robot based on how he moves and the sounds emitted. Ignore the first thirty seconds.

And here’s the website in case that doesn’t work:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR4eBe5FNwU

To know the difference between human or robot, must we see the “object” being viewed lagging? Or rather, must it be imperfect about it’s movement in order to determine how “real” the being is?

See this video to understand what I’m talking about:

Or if that doesn’t work here’s the website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqdluIN2Wjo

My final example is an excerpt from Bicentennial Man, the movie with Robin Williams if you can recall…

Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5YMEwX2-88

Now that all that fun stuff is out of the way, let’s focus on what Haugeland has to say about Cognitive Science. What I have learned thus far from our philosophy class (or at least the one concrete thing that I have learned) is that every word counts in philosophical writings. A close reading of philosophy forces you to question what does that word really mean? What are the intentions of the philosopher based on his use of ___ word? Initially Haugeland states, “The basic idea of cognitive science is that intelligent beings are semantic engines —in other words, automatic formal systems with interpretations under which they consistently make sense.” He builds on this further by stating, “with universal hardware, any semantic engine can in principle be formally imitated by a computer if only the right program can be found.” These statements suggest that a) we need to investigate further as to what he means by “intelligent,” b) that human beings are semantic engines, and c) that a computer can “imitate” “any semantic engine” such as humans as long as the right programming has been done. So the examples I placed in this post are considered imitated semantic engines. Can we imply that these imitations are in fact intelligent?

Later on in the article, Haugeland takes the “devils advocate” role on this view of semantic engines. He claims, ” people just aren’t semantic engines…no semantic engine can be genuinely intelligent.” That buzzword intelligent has got my mind reeling. Is artificial intelligence what he infers by the use of the word intelligent? Or is it rather the type of intelligence that comes with Aristotle’s meaning of intelligence or rather his definition of wisdom?

Haugeland cites two strategies for arguing that cognitive science is misconceived. The first being the “Hollow Shell” and the latter being the “Poor Substitute” method. The first strategy suggests that it doesn’t matter how well you program a semantic engine, it can’t really understand anything because it’s lacking this “X” factor. The second, or Poor Substitute, method suggests that such engines are even incapable of acting or “imitating” the notion of understanding. He cites three different possibilities for this “X” factor: consciousness, original intentionality, and caring. The first, consciousness, relates to what was said by a philosopher we already studied. (I can’t remember who it was.) It was something about this internal almost magical quality (help anyone?). It was basically what we would call our “essence.” The argument here is that a semantic engine (which for the remainder of my post I’m going to regard as a human robot for simplicity sake) is incapable of understanding because it lacks a consciousness. What’s interesting is that no one has a specific understanding of consciousness, so it can’t really be stated that human robots are incapable of this quality or rather that they lack it.

The notion of Original Intentionality is just a fancy way of stating that things only have meaning because we give it to them. This brings up the concept that words and symbols and numbers and gestures etc only have meaning based on what we (as humans) have assigned to them. How do we know that human robots don’t have this “X” factor? As Haugeland states, “It seems that original intentionality must depend on whether the object has a suitable structure and/or dispositions, relative to the environment.” That being said, I challenge whether or not such a “suitable structure and/or disposition” can be programmed? Afterall, when we raise children, aren’t we essentially programming them to have just that? I believe that in terms of human beings, original intentionality is programmed by the individuals that raise us or impact us greatly in the way we view our environment and understand the world around us. Haugeland also discusses that a “perfect robot…would seem to act on its own opinions, defend them from attack, and modify them when confronted with counter-evidence–all of which would suggest that they really are the robot’s own opinions.” I find that hard to believe since afterall, a robot’s responses would be programmed. THUS, these reactions/actions would be programmed by a human. This would infer then that these responses of sorts are not the “robot’s own opinions” but rather the creator’s or the author’s opinions.

The third X factor just makes me feel like the combination of these three elements describes wisdom rather than intelligence or cognitive science (but wisdom in the eyes of Aristotle). As Haugeland explains, “the intuition is that a system could not really mean anything unless it had a stake in what it was saying–unless its beliefs and goals mattered to it. Otherwise, it is just mouthing noises, or generating tokens mechanically.”

Reading this article made me think of Bicentennial Man and the human-made robot that I cited earlier in the post. All of those really seem to be human. It’s either the way they look, act, talk, respond (via gestures) that makes them appear human. IF a robot can be programmed to fulfill the three X factors described by Haugeland, does that mean that they are in fact human or rather that they are semantic engines? When watching Bicentennial Man, it’s so easy to accept the notion that a robot could feel, doubt, react (and all those terms used by Descartes). Are we in control of our senses? Or do they control us? I bring this up because I can accept that Robin Williams is a robot in the beginning part of the movie until he has “skin” and thus looks like a human. I can accept that the guy in the second movie clip is a robot until I see him move freely after his presentation.

Reminder: Tonight (Thursday) @ 6pm in Greg 217: I will be giving a short paper entitled “What is the Internet?”

Tomorrow @ 3pm in Greg 213, Bernard Reginster “On being Looked At: Sartre on the Significance of Alienation”

Attend either talk (and say hi to me!) and I will mark you down for extra credit. 

Here are the prompts for this week’s R&L thread. Respond to this post by class on Tuesday for participation credit for the week. 

1) Is the mind a semantic engine? Why or why not?

2) Argue for or against any of Haugeland’s X-factor objections to the central thesis of cognitive science. 

3) Can machines give a damn?

4) Is indistinguishability from human behavior enough for intelligence? Why or why not? Is the imitation game fair?

5) Is the Lady Lovelace objection fatal to the possibility of artificial intelligence?

6) Can machines learn? Are learning machines autonomous?