The blind eye towards the philosophy of artificial intelligence

Giant companies dealing with artificial intelligence are setting benchmarks and crossing milestones today. Artificial intelligence is now a universe in itself, a commerce that tops every other forms of business, an entity that every business uses.

However, it is important to know and remember that everything that is good is driven by some philosophy. Artificial intelligence too is enshrouded in philosophy which the majority is not aware of. Hence the philosophy of artificial intelligence is the most underrated.

A fun game for philosophers: AI and Philosophy  

Given the fact that AI is a discipline, it happens to be of considerable interest for philosophers. These philosophers strive to read between the lines of AI and their developments. They try to perceive every nook and cranny with logic which also involves deconstructionism, deontologic attempts that adhere to the doxastic attitudes.

The strong and the weak AI

In simple terms, strong AI aims to create humanoids or human like robots that are capable surpassing human intelligence.

Weak AI, on the contrary, is what adhered to by most companies. The machines that are designed to perform human tasks and emulate human skills.

The focus area of philosophers is judge the potentials of the two. Although, most philosophers hold a grudge against the strong AI and suggest to overthrow it. They accord that strong AI is likely to cause damage unlike weak AI that contributes to the progress of a nation.

How does philosophy affect artificial intelligence?

John McCarthy argues that the philosophy of artificial intelligence is important to consider as it impacts the practice of artificial intelligence.

It helps the practitioners to harp upon the most challenging questions, the ones which seem unanswerable.

Do we need mind to be intelligent?

This is that one question has pains the minds of not only philosophers but AI maestros as well. There are conflicting opinions and views about it.

Alan Turing, in his days, had opined that any machine that can imitate a human is intelligent and formulated a test known as The Alan Turing test. In his view, a machine that is able to behave like humans can pass the test. Intelligence is not required.

But this view continues to meet with criticisms as philosophers who are AI-fearing people in general.

Consciousness vs Intelligence

There is always a tug of war between consciousness and intelligence and pretty much the war is between philosophers and scientists.

While philosophers mostly stress on the presence of a mind to be intelligent, scientists defy the argument by prioritising consciousness.

In case of machines, as accorded by scientists of all ages, consciousness is the most important power to possess.

This can be better understood with the Chinese room experiment.

The Chinese room experiment

Searle who had devised this experiment and chose himself for the sample, locked himself up in a room. There were Chinese people standing outside the room. These people were supposed to send him cards written something on them in Chinese.

Searle on the other hand, had no knowledge of the language Chinese.

When they slipped their cards into the room, Searle used a translator to answer them back.

Fun part was that the Chinese did not suspect that the person inside lacked knowledge of the language Chinese and were convinced by the answers that were reverted to them in Chinese .

This experiment is a great explainer of how consciousness works than intelligence. Being conscious of the gadgets available and in situations that can be used is something that is executed using consciousness.

Intelligence in this would have been to decode the Chinese language based on certain symbols because that is what the language consist of- a set of symbols.

Incessant debates

The debates on the philosophy and artificial intelligence cannot find any respite because one cannot talk in absolutes in matters like these.

However, the philosophy of AI provides scientists and practitioners to strive to resolve the grey areas. And the constant challenges posed by the philosophers of AI opens rooms for channelising the improvements for artificial intelligence.