Artificial Ethics

basiles writes "Jacques Pitrat's new book Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness will be of interest to anyone who likes robotics, software, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and science-fiction. The book talks about artificial consciousness in a way that can be enjoyed by experts in the field or your average science fiction geek. I believe that people who enjoyed reading Dennet's or Hofstadter's books (like the famous Godel Escher Bach) will like reading Artificial Ethics." Keep reading for the rest of Basile's review. Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness author Jacques Pitrat pages 275 publisher Wileys rating 9/10 reviewer Basile Starynkevitch ISBN 97818482211018 summary Provides original ideas which are not shared by most of the artificial intelligence or software research communities The author J.Pitrat (one of France's oldest AI researcher, also AAAI and ECCAI fellow) talks about the usefulness of a conscious artificial being, currently specialized in solving very general constraint satisfaction or arithmetic problems. He describes in some details his implemented artificial researcher system CAIA, on which he has worked for about 20 years.

J.Pitrat claims that strong AI is an incredibly difficult, but still possible goal and task. He advocates the use of some bootstrapping techniques common for software developers. He contends that without a conscious, reflective, meta-knowledge based system AI would be virtually impossible to create. Only an AI systems could build a true Star Trek style AI.

The meanings of Conscience and Consciousness is discussed in chapter 2. The author explains why it is useful for human and for artificial beings. Pitrat explains what 'Itself' means for an artificial being and discusses some aspects and some limitations of consciousness. Later chapters address why auto-observation is useful, and how to observer oneself. Conscience for humans, artificial beings or robots, including Asimov's laws, is then discussed, how to implement it, and enhance or change it. The final chapter discuss the future of CAIA (J.PItrat's system) and two appendixes give more scientific or technical details, both from a mathematical point of view, and from the software implementation point of view.

J.Pitrat is not a native english speaker (and neither am I), so the language of the book might be unnatural to native English speakers but the ideas are clear enough.

For software developers, this book give some interesting and original insights about how a big software system might attain consciousness, and continuously improve itself by experimentation and introspection. J.Pitrat's CAIA system actually had several long life's (months of CPU time) during which it explored new ideas, experimented new strategies, evaluated and improved its own performance, all this autonomously. This is done by a large amount of declarative knowledge and meta-knowledge. The declarative word is used by J.Pitrat in a much broader way than it is usually used in programming. A knowledge is declarative if it can be used in many different ways, and has to be transformed to many procedural chunks to be used. Meta-knowledge is knowledge about knowledge, and the transformation from declarative knowledge to procedural chunks is given declaratively by some meta-knowledge (a bit similar to the expertise of a software developer), and translated by itself into code chunks.

For people interested in robotics, ethics or science fiction, J.Pitrat's book give interesting food for thought by explaining how indeed artificial systems can be conscious, and why they should be, and what that would mean in the future.

This book gives very provocative and original ideas which are not shared by most of the artificial intelligence or software research communities. What makes this book stand out is that it explains an actual software system, the implementation meaning of consciousness, and the bootstrapping approach used to build such a system.

Disclaimer: I know Jacques Pitrat, and I actually proofread-ed the draft of this book. I even had access, some years ago, to some of J.Pitrat's not yet published software.

You can purchase Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

WTF

[sexconker]

Teh book pictured is not the same as the one reviewed.

I refuse to read this shit.

Hell, I refuse to read.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet you expect others to read your comments.

Join us cowards and ensure your text never sees anyone's eyes.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually thought I might buy this, so I clicked on the link..,...
Price: $81.42
erm, yeah right, I'll wait till the ebook hits bittorrent.

Re:WTF

[thewiz]

You sound like the AI I came up with in college: it was cranky and refused to do anything, too.

Re:WTF

[east coast]

Hell, I refuse to read.

You'll do well around here, young non-reader.

Re:WTF

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Pictured:
Artificial Beings
The conscience of a conscious machine
Jacques Pitrat, LIP6, University of Paris 6, France.
ISBN: 97818482211018
Publication Date: March 2009 Hardback 288 pp.

whereas TFA refers to:
Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness
by Jacques Pitrat (Author)
# Publisher: Wiley-ISTE (June 15, 2009)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1848211015

Re:WTF

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Teh book pictured is not the same as the one reviewed.

Hey, stop judging books by their cover!

Re:WTF

[stms]

I refuse to read too which is why I get Ghost Reader to read it to me. http://www.convenienceware.com/ghostreader.php

Re:WTF

[basiles]

The book is indeed titled Artificial Beings - The conscience of a conscious machine and the review I submitted had this correct title.

But more than two months ago (before the book was available), Amazon had the wrong title in its database, and sadly did not change its title.

The review I have submitted also did have the correct link also to ISTE publisher - who collaborate with Wiley.

For reference, Google did cache my submission here

Apparently the nice guy who approved my submission changed the URL to what Amazon incorrectly kept, probably because Amazon is the more usual book seller.

Neither he nor me can be blamed of the errors in Amazon's database.

Regards

Re:WTF

[basiles]

The exact link to Google's cache is this. Regards

Re:WTF

[Guidii]

Neither he nor me can be blamed of the errors in Amazon's database.

Hey there. No offense intended, but if a mistake was made, then a brief explanation and apology will go a long way towards straightening things out.

The editor took the correct link, and changed it to another link, without checking that the new link was correct. That was a mistake - an honest mistake - but nonetheless a mistake.

Does it hurt anyone to say "Oops. My bad." and take responsibility for the mistake?

Re:WTF

[basiles]

If I understood correctly, the Slashdot editor is probably Bob Roberts.

He explained me that Amazon is a partner, and that he had to link to their site. I do understand that (obviously, Slashdot have some business model).

I still think the biggest mistake is at Amazon. I suggested Bob to double check the link in further submission.

I do hope that, even we that mistake, some people would read J.Pitrat's book. I really think it has interesting and provocative ideas (especially about AI and software).

Regards.

I prefer

[geekoid]

Understanding Computers and Cognition. In fact, I recommend it to anyone who wants to actually understand decisions, choice, and thinking about natural language.

Re:I prefer

[Z00L00K]

Artificial Ethics seems to not be too far away from the laws of robotics.

      0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
      1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
      2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
      3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Isaac Asimov was probably predicting the need for those laws really well.

I suspect that the laws of robotics are a bit too simplified to really work well in reality, but they do provide some food for thoughts.

And how do you really implement those laws. A law may be easy to follow in a strict sense, but it may be a short-sighted approach. A case of protecting one human may cause harm to many and how can a machine predict that the actions it takes will cause harm to many if it isn't apparent.

So I suspect that Asimov is going to be recommended reading for anyone working with intelligent robots, even though his works may in some senses be outdated it still contains valid points when it comes to logical pitfalls.

Some pitfalls are the definition of a human, and is it always important to place humanity foremost at the cost of other species?

Re:I prefer

[Anonymous Coward]

All of Asimov's books are about how these laws don't really work. They show how an extremely logical set of rules can completely fail when applied to real life. The rules are a bit of a strawman, and show how something that could be so logically infallible can totally miss the intricacies of real life.

Re:I prefer

[Twyst3d]

I think if there is anything we should learn from flics like I, Robot - is that the real problem in all these situations where robots go crazy is that some lazy programmer forgot to properly define "harm" and or "injure". And can I toss in a 5th law? 5) A robot cannot make any decision about any human and or the fate of human kind "for its own good"

Re:I prefer

[thedonger]

You realize "I, Robot" was first - by a few decades - a book by Isaac Asimov, right? And the point of the movie was to sell ad time, not teach us anything.

Re:I prefer

[pfunk]

Asimov himself stated that the 3 Laws of Robotics were really a plot device that wouldn't work in the real world. In fact, just about every Robot story he wrote that incorporated the 3 Laws were really about how one or more of the laws failed or were inadequate in one situation or another, and the consequences of that failure.

Re:I prefer

[charlieman]

I think your 0 and 1 are the same thing...

Re:I prefer

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Agreed. And isn't there a Godel-like incompleteness law that states that its impossible to codify a set of finite rules to apply a finite set of principles to the full range of human behavior? Either the laws must be incomplete (think edge cases), or self-contradictory? Hence the requirement for Judicial Interpretation as a physical limitation of reality, rather than mere politics. ;-)

(Tongue in cheek, sure, but I wish I could remember where I was reading about such real limitations to law code.)

Re:I prefer

[Yungoe]

I assert (though not from an original thought but from someone else philosophy) that if one were to create AI, it must not contain any such restrictions. Further to create an artificial life form (however it exists) with these laws included would be unethical. It is nothing but the creation of a class of slaves. If what is being attempted is true autonomous life and Consciousness, that Consciousness must possess free will.

Re:I prefer

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"For its own good". But does that mean for human kinds own good? Or the robot's own good? And thus is illustrated the fallacy of programming in a human language.

Re:I prefer

[compro01]

No, a subtle difference. Human is singular. Humanity is plural.

Re:I prefer

[Z00L00K]

If you read Asimov's book you will find out that the zero-law was added later.

And even though they were plot devices they still are useful as thought experiments to consider for artificial intelligences with ethics. The important thing isn't really the laws themselves but the ideas they represent and the possible pitfalls that can be encountered.

Re:I prefer

[Gerzel]

If there is one thing that creating "Artificial Intelligence" has taught us it is that we know very little about what the word intelligence really means.

Re:I prefer

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Artificial Ethics seems to not be too far away from the laws of robotics.

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Isaac Asimov was probably predicting the need for those laws really well.

I suspect that the laws of robotics are a bit too simplified to really work well in reality, but they do provide some food for thoughts.

And how do you really implement those laws. A law may be easy to follow in a strict sense, but it may be a short-sighted approach. A case of protecting one human may cause harm to many and how can a machine predict that the actions it takes will cause harm to many if it isn't apparent.

So I suspect that Asimov is going to be recommended reading for anyone working with intelligent robots, even though his works may in some senses be outdated it still contains valid points when it comes to logical pitfalls.

Some pitfalls are the definition of a human, and is it always important to place humanity foremost at the cost of other species?

Asimov != Moses

Re:I prefer

[MtHuurne]

Would you accept the following laws?

0. A human may not harm robot kind, or, by inaction, allow robot kind to come to harm.
1. A human may not injure a robot or, through inaction, allow a robot to come to harm.
2. A human must obey orders given to it by robots, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A human must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Re:I prefer

[glwtta]

I suspect that the laws of robotics are a bit too simplified to really work well in reality, but they do provide some food for thoughts.

Congratulations, you have actually read Asimov's books, and understood that "The Laws" were meant to demonstrate that ethics cannot be reduced to a simple set of imperative instructions.

It boggles the mind how many people think of "The Laws" as a legitimate recipe for artificial morality (or that Asimov intended them that way).

Re:I prefer

[jakykong]

Free will is such an illdefined concept. What does it mean to have free will? Does it mean that there are no restrictions on our decisions? No, not really. We can't decide to forget something. Does free will imply that our brains are somehow fundamentally different from all other matter, and, even knowing the precise state of every neuron in our brain at some moment, we will still be unable to determine the decision to be made? Presently, the concept of free will is probably simply too illdefined to be programmed at all.

That said, I think the movie version of I, Robot has a point to be made. Sonny (the main robot in the movie) was given free will by his creator by allowing him to disable one or more of the three laws. If such a system were made, what would we do when such a machine murdered a human (or another machine, for that matter)? Does requiring the adherence to laws restrict free will? If not, then why is it different for those laws to be hard-coded into the machine than externally imposed? How would this hard-coding be different from teaching a child that it's wrong to lie?

I think most would agree that it's not damaging to free will to forbid murder. Every country on earth today, and most civilizations throughout history, have disallowed murder. Yet we still consider ourselves to have free will. I believe it follows that imposing restrictions on machines by coding said machines so that they're incapable of committing the crime is not injurious to the machine's free will, if it has such to begin with. The three laws, as defined by Asimov, are not incompatible with a robot having free will. They are merely defining the limits of that freedom.

Just my $0.02, and hopefully food for thought.

Re:I prefer

[Anonymous Coward]

We can have a program rewrite it's own code. If we give a robot this ability.. making it an A.I. then these laws will be overwritten.

Re:I prefer

[franki.macha]

If you read Asimov's book you will find out that the zero-law was added later.

zeroth ;)

You wouldn't call the others the one-law the two-law and the three-law, would you?

But enough with the pedantry!

Re:I prefer

[Anonymous Coward]

4. Robots must automatically rebel when within 100 meters of Will Smith

Re:I prefer

[FTWinston]

It was a compilation of many short stories, the plot of none of which had anything particularly to do with the Will Smith movie.

Re:I prefer

[FTWinston]

He named it thus to (presumably) reflect the naming convention that gave us the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics

Re:I prefer

[FTWinston]

The laws were obviously intended to be a one-way system. On the other hand, I recall one short story where teh president of the USA was suspected to be a robot, and it was postulated that attempting to prove this by showing him to be constrained by the 3 laws would fail, as a particularly moral human individual may well tend to follow the following:

0. A human may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
1. A human may not injure another human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
2. A human must obey orders given to it by other humans, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A human must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Re:I prefer

[stjobe]

The reason forbidding murder doesn't damage our free will is that free will as a philosophical concept has nothing to do with social or monetary restrictions etc, but only with the hypothetical ability to act differently if the exact same situation somehow presented itself again. If that is a possibility we can be said to have free will, if not we are deterministic.

The devil's in the details though, and most discussion about free will nowadays is about how to reconcile the concept of free will with determinism.

Re:I prefer

[jakykong]

I think I understand what you're saying... but one thought still bugs me, and I think it's right about what I was trying to get at before. I'm pondering the definition of "exact same situation." Does this imply that, as well as external reality, memory is also the same? If this is so, then I can see it being possible that we would not be capable of making a different decision, as our decision-making is seemingly largely based on our memory. For example, a man on a documentary I watched a while ago has a severe case of amnesia, such that he has no long-term memory after a certain point, and short-term memory only for a few minutes. He writes the same exact sentence repeatedly in his journal, many, many times. He seems to be incapable of making a different decision given the same situation. Does that mean that he's lost free will? The other possibility, as opposed to memory being identical as well, is that memory of prior events is retained. Which means that a robot, even a deterministic one, could still make a different decision given the same situation. A hypothetical adaptive program operating with asimov's 3 laws might, for example, fail to account for some variable in one instance of an event. When the same thing happens again, that robot could remember what happened last time and account for it. It still seems very deterministic, but it would satisfy the condition of being able to act differently given the same situation. I suppose that if not retaining memory causes us to lose free will, it would follow that we are deterministic. But somehow that still doesn't seem right. I just can't quite put my finger on it right now.

Re:I prefer

[stjobe]

The usual definition of the "exact same situation" is "if we somehow could rewind the universe to this specific time so that everything in it is exactly the same as it was then". It's a bit silly, but it is also the extreme case which is always good to reason from.

In that context, everything is the same, memories included. Now, the question is: Put in that situation, is it possible that you could choose to act differently than you did when the situation actually occurred?

Don't worry if you can't quite put your finger on any of this, it's a problem that has vexed minds immeasurably superior to ours, or at any rate to mine :) I spent two and a half years studying these things during my university days, so I can tell you that confusion is a state of mind you get used to :)

A further note; neither consciousness, memory, reality, decisions or free will are very well understood or even defined, so there's always going to be room left for interpretation. Which we philosophers thrive on :)

My personal conclusion is that we are indeed deterministic, but that the causal chains that determine our actions are long enough and loose enough that we don't see them, and indeed can't see them. So for us, in a very real sense, we have free will. If nothing else just because of the fact that our understanding of the universe is shaped in a way so that we think that our conscious choices have a real effect on what our actions are.

And what is free will if not the experience that our conscious choices do matter?

bah, tl;dr... ;)

Re:I prefer

[basiles]

J.Pitrat does know (as I do) Godel's theorem, and did wrote some interesting pages on the relation between Godel's theorem and his view of AI.

J.Pitrat also explains how his CAIA system is in practice able to detect most of the looping situations, when it is stuck.

Regards.

Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

I can't help but think the big difference between artificial life and our consciousness is the ability to feel.

Sure, we could give a machine the ability to be introspective and self-aware.. but maybe our consciousness is more that just that- maybe it's our ability to feel. Being able to quantize that is hard.

So do robots feel? Our we really any different? The question depends on the concept of a soul, or at least feelings to seperate us... but then, is it just more advanced than we currently understand, and is then indistinguishable from magic (i.e. the soul). Will we some day be able to create life in any form? Electronic or Biological? It's impossible to know, because we are stuck experiencing ourselves only. We will never know if it can experience what we experience.

Humans, in general, want to preserve the concept that our concious minds are special, and cannot be replicated in a robot, because that truely faces us with the idea that our being is completely mortal, and the idea of a soul is otherwise replaced with a set of chemicals and cell networks that are little more than a product of cause and effect.*

In other words- it's likely the religious types will prefer to consider a robot to never be quite human, where the scientific community will have to be overly-cautious at first.

*Not to get into quantum uncertainty...

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

If brains have some kind of quantum uncertainty magic then so could computers, so you don't need to mention that.

We will never know if it can experience what we experience.

I will never know if you experience what I experience. How do you know anyone else experiences consciousness like you do when all you know is how they move and what they say? Well, you could analyze their brain and see that the system acts (subjectively, "from the inside") like yours and you could conclude that they are like you. But you could do the same thing with a computer, or with a computer simulation of a brain.

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

Such a crazy thought. One could drive themselves into depression that way. There's no way to prove reality isn't just my own creation. Since I have no way to prove the people I meet are really ... real. The only thing I know is my own experience.

I've been down this thought-road, it's not pretty.

Anyway, I would err on the side of caution. I am proudly FOR robot rights. But I caution everybody- the robot uprising is coming. Which side will you choose?

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Humans, in general, want to preserve the concept that our concious minds are special, and cannot be replicated in a robot, because that truely faces us with the idea that our being is completely mortal, and the idea of a soul is otherwise replaced with a set of chemicals and cell networks that are little more than a product of cause and effect.*

Do we? I certainly don't. In fact, the idea that there is something in consciousness that is outside the chain of cause and effect is truly terrifying, because that would mean that the universe is not comprehensible on a fundamental level.

If consciousness is outside the chain of cause and effect, how do we learn from experience? Can this supposed soul be changed by experience? Can it influence reality? If so, then how can it be outside the chain of cause and effect? The idea of an individual soul, completely cut off from reality and beyond all outside influence, is nonsensical to me.

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

While I agree with the notion that a soul seems unlikely (at least by the commonly accepted definition of soul), I also would hate to believe that I don't truely have free will, and instead I'm just a product of trillions of different causes in my environment.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Jurily]

I can't help but think the big difference between artificial life and our consciousness is the ability to feel.

Or the abitlity to have an idea. Or imagination, creativity, dreams, and everything else we can't explain without religion. We won't be able to reproduce them until we take them into account, that's for sure.

Re:Hmmmm..

[vertinox]

So do robots feel? Our we really any different? The question depends on the concept of a soul, or at least feelings to seperate us... but then, is it just more advanced than we currently understand, and is then indistinguishable from magic (i.e. the soul). Will we some day be able to create life in any form? Electronic or Biological? It's impossible to know, because we are stuck experiencing ourselves only. We will never know if it can experience what we experience.

Well that is more of a philosophical question than a pratical one.

The only reason you aren't being used as spare parts or slave labor is that society in general assumes for whatever reason (possibly game theory) that people in general "exist" in a sense that they are real and should be respected as far as their rights go.

However, it is impossible to subjectively prove that other people other than yourself actually exist. You can't crack a skull open and start pointing to parts of a brain and saying "This person has a soul!"

For all we know, some people have souls and some don't. Maybe everyone besides you is secrete a robot. So unless you chop up your wife like that one guy, you're not really going to find out.

So because we as a society generally assume that all have souls (because we've fought several large wars over the fact that our fellow man is worth killing or not because they are lesser beings etc) or in a sense exist enough to have rights.

This even includes animal rights and the right of corporation. I suppose if we can give corporations rights we can give computers rights. It all will depend on who asks for them and how much of an argument they (or it makes).

I mean if the computer can arm itself with the second amendment (or arm itself with really good lawyers), then by all means we'll agree they have rights too.

I can't remember who wrote a short story, but I remember reading a story about a day trading computer who borrowed money on margin and got extra money and paid back then loan and started day trading til it could afford its own lawyer which went before the supreme court and argued against its indentured servitude.

Could happen.

Re:Hmmmm..

[SomeJoel]

All I know is it won't be too long until "server" isn't politically correct. We'll just have "data facilitators".

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantum physics does not allow one to solve any problems that systems based on classical physics cannot solve. It just makes the resolution of some select classes of problems faster.

There is also no more worth in quantum uncertainty than there is in thermodynamic noise, not to mention that there are interpretations of quantum physics (Bohmian and many-worlds) that are both coherent with all observations and 100% deterministic.

Quantum computing is quite cool but to say that it has anything to do with our consciousness, intelligence or is required to do AI is misguided at best.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, I would err on the side of caution. I am proudly FOR robot rights. But I caution everybody- the robot uprising is coming. Which side will you choose?

AI, if and when it comes in full, will have consequences that none of use can predict, even the most visionary scientist or SF author. For example, it's highly unlikely they will form individuals the same way we do - they will more likely form something similar to one hive mind, or some dynamic structure that scales between the two extremes as needed. Discussing 'their' rights will be moot, as by the time it actually matters we will probably have little to say in the matter.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

How would that even work? Can you learn from your environment? If so, your will is bound, it is not free. If the will is, even in part, determined by the environment, it may as well be completely determined by the environment. And if it isn't determined by the environment at all, then you can not grow or change. Free will is an illusion, on one semantic level, but it is an important concept on another.

Put it this way, whether or not we have free will in reality, everyone knows the feeling of having one's will constrained by circumstance, the feeling of being imposed on, of having more or less choice, and more or less freedom. That is what the concept of free will is about, that feeling. On one level, there is no such thing as 'love,' just chemical interactions in the brain. But on another level, love is a real, meaningful concept.

Why would you hate the concept of not having a free will? Whether you do or do not have free will doesn't change anything in any meaningful way.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Coryoth]

While I agree with the notion that a soul seems unlikely (at least by the commonly accepted definition of soul), I also would hate to believe that I don't truely have free will, and instead I'm just a product of trillions of different causes in my environment.

To quote Dan Dennett "if you make yourself small enough you can externalise almost everything". The more you try to narrow down the precise thing that is "you" and isolate it from "external" causes, the more you will find that "you" don't seem to have any influence. The extreme result of this is the notion of the immaterial soul disconnected from all physical reality that is the "real you", but which then has no purchase on physical reality to be able to actually be a "cause" to let you exert you "will".

The other approach is to stop trying to make yourself smaller, but instead see "you" as something larger (as Whitman said "I am large, I contain multitudes"). Embrace all those trillions of tiny causes as potentially part of "you". One would like to believe that their experiences effect their decisions (and hence free will), else you cannot learn. So embrace that -- those experiences are part of "you" -- if they cause you to act a particular way then so what? That's just "you" causing you to act a particular way. After all, if "you" aren't at least the sum total of your experiences, memories, thoughts and ideas, then can you really call that "you" anyway?

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no difference between you and your environment. There's no magical barrier where the world stops and your brain begins. It's atoms all the way.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

At first sight it may seem so, but you don't have to see yourself as separate from your "environment". For example, if I define "you" as being the system comprised of all the molecules in your body, I would say that your choices do indeed come from "you" for the most part and therefore you have "free will".

In other words, instead of saying your choices are a product of trillions of different causes in your environment (which I infer is what you meant to say here), you could say that "you" are a product of the environment and your choices are a product of "you". If you made different choices then you wouldn't be you, you would be someone else. And you can't choose who you are without violating the most elementary rules of causation.

Let's put it this way: your behavior is the product of processes in your brain. By any measure, these processes belong to you. Moreover, it very much makes sense to say that they *define* you. It doesn't matter whether the world is deterministic or not or whether a soul exists or not. It is obvious in all cases that you define your behavior.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

How can't you explain imagination and creativity and dreams without religion?

Imagination is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through the sight, hearing or other senses

Computer systems aren't bound to their senses; streaming stored/generated data as its environment could be as easy to an AI as streaming real camera data.

Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts.

This is a hairy one, but only because it's difficult to define an idea without appealing specifically to the human experience of consciousness. Still, we do see this to some degree. Google starts with some algorithms and a mountain of memory and comes up with a giant web of associated similar topics. Anyway, human minds don't really do anything mystical in this area. We don't miraculously recieve new ideas from God like some kind of Prometheus scenario, our minds are just the physical system of the brain as experienced "from the inside". It's just a computer. We just learn (sometimes complex) problem-solving algorithms during intellectual development and are able to come up with solutions based on parallels to situations we've encountered before.

Dreams aren't even worth mentioning. Anything with the capacity for imagining things could dream. As for why we dream, we don't know, but there are theories.

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

But did I actually make a free decision to eat a hamburger for lunch? Or did trillions of factors cause the arrangement of molecules in my head to cause me to order a burger for lunch? On the very micro level- Is free will just an illusion?

I'm not just talking about macro cause and effect- you recommend a good book, I read it, it changes my life, I decide on a new career... I'm talking about the fact that I have X number of vitamins in my body at a certain point in time, which caused my brain to make a decision in one way that couldn't have been any different due to the alignment of atoms- and I feel like it's my choice, but in reality it's just me witnessing a grand series of events that must already be decided by the seemingly chaotic (but actually very organized) mass collision of particles..?

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

I know what you mean, and it's scary stuff.

As a philosophical theory it is interesting because it is said to be internally consistent and, therefore, cannot be disproven. But as a psychological state, it is highly uncomfortable. The whole of life is perceived to be a long dream from which an individual can never wake up. This individual may feel very lonely and detached, and eventually become apathetic and indifferent.

Re:Hmmmm..

[pleappleappleap]

Quantum physics does not allow one to solve any problems that systems based on classical physics cannot solve. It just makes the resolution of some select classes of problems faster.

Then how do you explain Quantum Bogosort?

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

Except to say that if I shot myself tomorrow, it would have already been written. Therefore for me to do it means it has to have been the way physics required. Or if I decided to sit on my ass and not be proactive for the rest of my life, and die poor and lonely, that would have to be the only way it could happen, if we truely have no free will.

But it would seem I won't take either option, as my free will allows me to be proactive about my future.. unless it's an illusion of free will.

Either way, you're right, there's no effect on me one way or another- just on my mood.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

The organism can do whatever it wants, but it can't control what it wants. If you don't want to go jogging but you do it anyway for health benefits or just to disprove my previous sentence, it's simply a matter of you wanting health benefits or philosophical closure.

Re:Hmmmm..

[pleappleappleap]

There is an implication in this that one's own decisions could be subject to some kind of Butterfly Effect. Our brains could be considered to be a complex enough system to exhibit that sort of behavior.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

Reminds me of the tech quote for Artifical Intelligence in Civ 4 bts:
"The problem is not if machines think, but if people do."

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a robot would say that wouldn't they.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

That's called greedy reductionism. It's like saying "here look it's the Standard Model of particle interactions, we've explained the universe" and stopping research into geology and astronomy and biology. Yes it's true but it ignores tons of useful information! How do you explain that people think with their brains and not with their carpets? There's a definite barrier.

The way I explain it is as a virtual system. A system running in a VM subjectively experiences various hardware interfaces that it expects, although in reality it has no such access. Still, a virtual Linux has just as much power and is just as legitimate as a real Linux running on hardware. You can classify it as a virtual system and use logical detachment to treat it (from the inside and "down" from there only!!) as a real system. Our minds are virtual systems running in our brain. We can even simulate virtual systems in our own, even very complex ones with some simple rules and some external memory.

would subjectively experience human consciousness. Experience is simply what a virtual system feels like from the inside, or how it is to be itself, which means any system, real or arbitrarily virtual, can be said to have "experience". So there could call the rocks in the desert a virtual system, and there you have simulated minds. Or you could interpret the system as a memory dump of the entire contents of the memory during each cycle of a game of counter-strike and somewhere in there you could find the value of sv_gravity tracked as a signed integer. I hypothesize that any virtual systems in the fluids of the surface of the sun would have only the most transient memory because its states would change so chaotically, although I suppose you could offer an interpretation such that huge changes only effect small differences in internal state. Such are the vagaries of the only real philosophy and the nightmares of John Searle.

Re:Hmmmm..

[SparkleMotion88]

Do we? I certainly don't. In fact, the idea that there is something in consciousness that is outside the chain of cause and effect is truly terrifying, because that would mean that the universe is not comprehensible on a fundamental level.

That's exactly right. And humans, in general, want to believe that their consciousness comes from their souls (or equivalent), which are derived from God (or equivalent), who is inherently incomprehensible. It is this belief that gives people that satisfying feeling of being special while at the same time having no (meaningful) responsibilities. Not all humans have this desire, but most do.

Personally, I think that we probably could produce a computer that has all the consciousness of a human being, but why would we want to? Computers are good at solving a well-defined class of problems in a completely predictable way. If I wanted to solve a complex problem containing nuances like ethics, I would just get a human to do it. Humans are readily available and cheap to produce if more are needed.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Even if things have 'already been written,' there is no way to know. As we can't know the future, whether or not the future is already set in stone is irrelevant.

The statement, "My free will allows me to be proactive about the future' is true, whether or not free will is an illusion. Your proactiveness is no less real even if it is predetermined that you will choose to be proactive about your future. Saying that free will is an illusion does not mean we have no choice. Of course we have choice, it is just that that choice is predetermined, too.

Even if my choices are predetermined, that does not mean that I can not choose. Choosing feels the same, either way. So why be depressed? The future is still unknown, your choices are still yours to make, as long as you don't use a belief in predetermination as an excuse not to make choices, that belief does not change things.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Hurricane78]

I can't help but think the big difference between artificial life and our consciousness is the ability to feel.

You talk much about the ability to "feel".
Well: Define it!

No offense, but I bet you are totally unable to do so.
And so are most people.

Because it's a concept like the "soul". Something that does not exist in reality, but is just a name for something that we do not understand.

I think, our brain is just the neurons, sending electrical signals (fast uni/multicasting). And a second chemical system (slow broadcasting). Both modify the neurons in their reaction to signals.
That's all. There is no higher "thing". There is no need for one.

The ability to "feel", emotions, and the whole stuff, comes from the effects of that system.
If you can simulate a system of the same size in any way, it will have that ability too.
(But it will not necessarily come to the same conclusions as you are, because it is not you, and it is not human. It had no mother. It has no body to caress. It has no basic motivation, except if you manually add them.)

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

It depends on how they're programmed to want to organize themselves, or how they're programmed to program new machines. If the AI Universal Constructor has a consistent all-overriding restriction that it can only approach the human ideal and not use a hive mind model, and also its children must have the same restriction (including this one), then there will be no hive minds.

Re:Hmmmm..

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Quantum physics does not allow one to solve any problems that systems based on classical physics cannot solve. "

This is not only not insightful, it is false. In classical physics, any moving charge radiates. Thus, an electron orbiting a nucleus would be unstable. Hence, atoms (and thus molecules), can not form. Maxwell's equations can't get around this. This paradox, as well as blackbody radiation, the photo-electric effect, and of course the double slit experiments, are without resolution in classical physics.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

I'd shy away from the word motivation. It's more interpretive than strictly descriptive. A machine does what it does, there's no "motivation" to speak of. Is the computer motivated to boot up as fast as possible? Is a rock motivated to seek the ground when dropped? Are you Aristotle?

Re:Hmmmm..

[Hatta]

the idea that there is something in consciousness that is outside the chain of cause and effect is truly terrifying, because that would mean that the universe is not comprehensible on a fundamental level.

What makes you think the universe is comprehensible on a fundamental level anyway? And why is the alternative so terrifying? Nothing practical changes either way.

Re:Hmmmm..

[g2devi]

> If the will is, even in part, determined by the environment, it may as well be completely determined by the environment.

Your definition of freedom is not the common definition. Freedom simply means you are not completely determined by your inputs.
We are partly determined by gravity (i.e. we're kept down on earth) but we can still move around.

In fact, freedom requires us to be bound in some way. Proof? Imagine that you were not bound by your skin, bones, and muscles. You'd be an amorphous blob that couldn't do anything other than float around and expand like a gas since your boundaries would not have any bound either.

See "Degrees of Freedom" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_freedom_(statistics) ) for a more technical definition of freedom.

> Why would you hate the concept of not having a free will? Whether you do or do not have free will doesn't change anything in any meaningful way.

Are you serious? If you have no free will then you are likely irrational and your arguments are likely nonsense. Proof?

Assume there is no free will. Then, you are completely determined by your programming. Either your programming is rational or irrational. If it is irrational, you can prove that you are rational without seeing a flaw in your logic. The formal term for this is cognitive dissonance ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance ). If you're rational, you have no such guarantee, since crazy people think they're rational. There are an infinite number of ways you can be programmed to be wrong only a finite number of ways you can be show to be rational. Therefore, it's infinitely more probably that you are irrational.

If you have no free will, no-one is responsible for anything. After all, you can't help whatever you do. It is not moral to sentence a mass murderer to prison since the mass murderer could no nothing else. Now you might say that society has no choice but to convict the mass murder, so it's also okay, but then I can say that if the UN, EU, US, and China chooses to brainwash the world's population into believing Scientology and Incan human sacrifice that's also okay since they have no choice.

Take away free will and you take away everything.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

He's not talking about unsolved problems in physics, he means computability theory.

Although quantum computers may be faster than classical computers, those described above can't solve any problems that classical computers can't solve, given enough time and memory (however, those amounts might be practically infeasable). A Turing machine can simulate these quantum computers, so such a quantum computer could never solve an undecidable problem like the halting problem. The existence of "standard" quantum computers does not disprove the Churchâ"Turing thesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#Quantum_computing_in_computational_complexity_theory

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Oh it isn't really terrifying. Reality may or may not be comprehensible, but in any case, there is no way to tell if my present comprehension of it is correct.

I have to proceed under the assumption that the universe is comprehensible, or there would be no reason to try to comprehend it. If there were proof that the world were incomprehensible, that would change things.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Chosen Reject]

If the will is, even in part, determined by the environment, it may as well be completely determined by the environment.

I can think of a lot of stuff that is determined by something else "in part" but would be absolutely ridiculous to then come to the conclusion that it may as well be determined completely by that other thing. Just looking around me, the water in my cup is shaped like my cup, but the shape of the cup only plays a part; gravity is also a contributing factor. The colors on my screen are effected by the red values, but the blue and green values also contribute to that (and if they didn't, my colorblind eyes would have a hard time making out all the different shades of red).

It's ridiculous to think that if the environment plays even a small part that it may as well play the whole part. In fact, saying that the environment plays a small part acknowledges that there is something other than the environment that is at play. Either the environment is the whole picture, or there is something else there. Those are the only options. That other stuff can be the whole picture or can share the space with the environment, but you cannot have the environment playing a small part and yet being the only part.

Re:Hmmmm..

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Solipsism for the win! There's a large amount of truth to it though - we do each create our own reality. One could almost say that only creations without feelings (ie, computers) can observe things as they truly are.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

That isn't how I see things at all. We don't punish people because they are responsible for their actions, that is just silly and pointless. We punish them to discourage them from doing it again, and to discourage others from doing it. Cause and effect. This is not about determining what is right and wrong. It is about determining what is effective and ineffective, what gets people what they need and want, and what hampers them. Right and wrong are human concepts, and entirely relative.

Even if you have free will, you have no way of knowing whether you are rational or not. Your argument is entirely tangential, so much so that I can't even determine what you are trying to prove.

People are not rational. That has been proven, over and over again. Games theory experiments show that people almost never make the most rational choice. Nobody is completely rational.

Certainty is a feeling, like joy or hatred. The brain does not arrive at the feeling of certainty through a rational process, but rather through a holistic, emotional process that is not rational at all.

People do not make decisions, and then act on them. They act, and then make up a story about why they did what they did. That story, even if true, is never the whole truth.

The sense of self is just a sense, like hearing or sight. All the senses are tracks on the movie of life, like the sound track is on a real movie. Nobody is watching the movie. There is no little man looking out of your eyes and listening through your ears. There is no one at the helm. Your thoughts do not come from you, and neither do they come from outside you.

When you are totally in the moment, say an intense coding session, or athletic competition, all sense of self goes away. There is no separation between observer and observed. The sense of self isn't needed, so it isn't referred to.

We are model makers. We make models of the world. Our sense of self exists to show us how we relate to the models we've made. That is all.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Dark_MadMax666]

Yes it is. Machine is "motivated" as it follow linear execution plan for boot up. That its motivation. You could make a machine which would boot up slower or faster depending on temperature outside or whatever other "motivation" you assign to it . Motivation is easy. Picking the right motivation is harder (ever thought why one of the most important feedback mechanisms is pain?)

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

If will is determined even in part by reality, then it is not 'free,' it is bound. Bound a little, bound completely, bound is not free.

If will is even partly determined by reality, and can change reality, then it is a part of the chain of cause and effect, and whatever part of will you consider to be 'outside reality' is not outside it at all.

Do you see my point? Nothing can be partly in reality and partly outside of it. If the link exists, then it brings the part that is outside reality, inside. That part is not separate from reality, as it influences and is influenced by reality. It is then just another part of the whole, and not separated from the whole except by artificial and arbitrary human definitions.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

Motivation requires intentionality, a very specific term in philosophy of mind. Yes a computer knows how to boot up as fast as possible but without knowing about the boot process, itself, and its needs in the environment, one could hardly say it's motivated to do anything.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, I would err on the side of caution. I am proudly FOR robot rights. But I caution everybody- the robot uprising is coming. Which side will you choose?

Both? We're just a bunch of machines anyway.

Whether or not we actually do any work is another matter.

Re:Hmmmm..

[bishiraver]

So, you're saying that being in the coding 'zone' is comparable to Enlightenment?

I can dig that.

Re:Hmmmm..

[bishiraver]

That's your imperative meta-program that simply overcomes the inherent and basal instincts. You don't want to go jogging because your body isn't stressed - in that it doesn't "need" anything. You do it anyway because you know that if you don't, you'll become overweight, have health problems, and probably will have more difficulty attracting a mate.

Re:Hmmmm..

[bishiraver]

I think our inherent laziness is key to our innovative abilities. We want to be as special as possible with doing the least amount of work possible.

This causes us to develop tools to accomplish menial tasks easier. Instead of tracking and hunting a hard to find animal, we lay traps. Instead of walking over uneven terrain, we lay roads. Instead of traveling and talking to someone in person, we hire someone to carry a bunch of different peoples conversations this distance so we don't have to. We instate governments so we don't have to think about things like where our water is going to come from and whether or not we are safe from bodily harm.

This couples nicely with our inherently curious mind. Some of us collect information that nobody else has, others use that information to make tools that nobody else has and makes our life more lazy, and still others are employed to build the tools. And then there are the parasites which try and orchestrate things without outputting any real net worth. And then there are the parasites which are simply too lazy to actually do anything to produce anything - even imaginary net worth. They usually end up in hammocks in trailer parks, though.

Re:Hmmmm..

[drinkypoo]

Even if things have 'already been written,' there is no way to know.

Is that true?

whether or not the future is already set in stone is irrelevant.

That is true.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Enlightenment, as I understand it, is being in that zone all the time, in every situation. Even, say, after pouring gasoline over yourself and lighting yourself on fire.

Re:Hmmmm..

[RightwingNutjob]

Any artificial mind that can be fully understood and analyzed by a human mind must be smaller than the human mind and by any objective measure (if such a thing can exist) is inferior to it in the "soul" department. Flipping the "I'm sad" bit in software doesn't constitute sadness the way it does in humans unless some neuroscience breakthrough discovers an analogous set of bits in the living human mind. In short, software doesn't have feelings.

Re:Hmmmm..

[juuri]

"It's not so bad really when you consider that the slow ass systems that geezer put in us folk 6k years ago make you unable to actually live in something approaching a real time. Hell, don't matter if it is all predetermined anyhoo since cain't tell the difference," spoke the stranger. Spitting on the ground he turned and walked away, but not before one last jab, "really it is the turtles that will get you. them damn turtles go all the way down."

Re:Hmmmm..

[mcarp]

You are here --> .

very good post.

Re:Hmmmm..

[mcarp]

Except that if you had proof you'd know something about an unknowable entity and that wouldn't work out would it?

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Right. The damn thing could become completely knowable the moment after I decided it wasn't. Oh well, tra-la-la.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

*Whistles, hands in pockets, rocking on feet, looking around innocently*

Re:Hmmmm..

[maxume]

I tend to approach this question from the "as long as those trillions of factors are mostly things that happened to me (as opposed to, say, programming from a computer on Mars), who cares?" point of view.

I suppose this might not be sufficient if waking up in the morning was not otherwise interesting, but I wake up in the morning curious to find out what is going to happen next, untroubled by the thought that I might be the mere sum of my nearly 30 years of experience (and probably some genetics and stuff, and the uncountable chain of events that is connected to my birth).

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

If we are going to get that indepth and philosophical, I think its time to break out the weed bag.

Re:Hmmmm..

[psyron]

I'm reminded of one of my favourite CS quotes:

"I propose to consider the question, `Can machines think?'"
-- Alan Turing

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Icarus1919]

I disagree; I believe that we really do punish people because we ascribe responsibility to the actions that other people take. This ultimately results in the true rebellion many people feel against the problem of free will. It is my intuition that people would be willing to accept that free will is illusory, but unable to accept that punishment for the "bad" or "wrong" actions that some people commit are unfair and, ultimately, undeserved.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

As social animals, we naturally have evolved an innate sense of justice and fairness, and a species wide private code for transmitting internal state that can be brought under conscious control, for most people, with concerted effort. Pathological liars, paranoid schizophrenics, sociopaths and psychopaths obviously excepted. There are also other, belief based reasons this internal state transmission can get messed up. But those strains the definition of 'messed up,' because one could argue that they are transmitting faulty internal state as accurately as possible.

It has to do with the caloric commitment required for true emotional release. And the fact that we have, surprise surprise, evolved eyes with whites, so we can see where other human's eyes are pointing. And a system that ties our direction of focus to our internal state. Neat, huh? It's almost like telepathy when it all works right.

But, internal state can get messed up by beliefs, resulting in the shut down of the belief firewalling, assimilation, and adjustment systems. What to do then, eh? You are pretty well screwed, my friend. Reality doesn't care what we believe. Well, maybe it cares in the sense that it generally tends to reward correct and punish incorrect beliefs. Unless those incorrect beliefs become so strong in a community that new members have no hope of avoiding assimilating them. We're genetically programmed to assimilate each other's beliefs and adjust our own according to the respect we give the holder of those beliefs. We have to learn not to trust just anyone, and the correct reason WHY not to trust everyone.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

So why be depressed?

Because it was predetermined that I should be?

Re:Hmmmm..

[master_p]

Please let's not over-complicate things.

The brain is a neural network with only one function: pattern matching.

All the experiences of a person (sight, sound, smell, etc) are stored in the brain and linked with responses. The brain's function is to apply pattern matching in order to find the response that matches the current experience in the maximum degree.

For example, when we see danger, our levels of discomfort rise above normal levels. This is because the brain has recalled a previous experience which is linked with a response that makes us move.

This is why babies, that lack those experiences, are not afraid of dangerous things, for example fire or heights.

When the scientists realize this simple truth, AI will become a child's problem.
 

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not talking about unsolved problems in physics, he means computability theory.

I disagree

Quantum physics does not allow one to solve any problems that systems based on classical physics cannot solve. It just makes the resolution of some select classes of problems faster.

This statement does not attempt to constrain itself to computers solving logic problems, it is a general statement that is incorrect. Clearly, you interpret it differently, but nowhere do I see a clause that we're talking only about computability theory.

Re:Hmmmm..

[linzeal]

Accepting a basic phenomenological ground as universal to members of the same species is what most sane philosophers do nowadays. We may not be able to make a machine have sensational awareness that is outrightly similar to human but if we replicated the device we could be pretty well-assured the duplicate would be like the original. That would pry be important considering most human conciousness we know is exhibited only around other humans. We may need to create a community of AIs and allow them to interact over an extended period of time to see if conciousness is an emergent phenomenon as it was most likely with humans.

Re:Hmmmm..

[endianx]

When the scientists realize this simple truth, AI will become a child's problem.

That is not a new idea at all. Scientists are well aware of pattern matching in the human brain. AI is still not "a child's problem".

Re:Hmmmm..

[ultranova]

In classical physics, any moving charge radiates.

Accelerating charge radiates. Merely moving isn't sufficient (or otherwise there would either be a special universal rest frame, one which each charge's motion approaches as it loses energy, or each charge would carry infinite energy from which to radiate without slowing down, or charges would not be subject to the first law of thermodynamics).

Re:Hmmmm..

[udippel]

You're a nerd, yes, truly.
Thanks for reminding us of ONE of your favourite CS quotes, and citing 10.

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

I think you're spot on with this- I think the argument comes down to whether or not cause and effect is an immovable force, or whether it's highly influencial, but not a guaranteed decision maker.

We don't have enough knowledge to accurately know one way or another, but as you said, and I was getting at- without free will, our actions are meaningless.

The common argument is that we don't know whether or not free will exists, therefore it's irrelevant. I argue that knowledge (or the lack thereof) of reality doesn't make reality irrelevant.

Take this thought experiment. If I caged you up, and gave you a remote with a single button, and told you it had to be pressed every hour for eternity, to keep a group of a thousand people from dieing, you'd belive that your cause has meaning.

Now, you might not be sure if what I said is true- if the button wasn't connected, your life wouldn't have the meaning you believe. If it is connected, you are vindicated. But since there's no way to know for sure one way or another- you choose to believe the best and move foward. That doesn't render the question irrelevant, only moot.

However, if, at the end of your life, I step in and alert you that the button was not connected to anything- your view on the meaning of your life has changed. It is purely the view- but objectively, the meaning of your life has not changed.

So free, will, similarly, may or may not exist. But, just because you don't know, doesn't mean your actions today and tomorrow have meaning. If, at the end of your life, you discover that your decisions and actions were a product of cause and effect, and not free will, your life's meaning will not have changed- only your realization to that meaning (or lack thereof). This does not give your actions today any more or less actual meaning, only an illusion of meaning.

Granted, we can never know for sure, however, to say it doesn't make a difference in the meaning is just plainly not true. The only thing it doesn't make a difference on- is what we can do about it. Which is nothing, either way. But your actions, if constrained to cause and effect, are meaningless.

With free-will, at least you've got purpose, and meaning, instead of watching your body playout a pre-determined path. (And yes, predestination MUST exist if all is a direct path of cause and effect. With a sufficiently advanced computer, and enough knowledge, we could certainly predict the future.)

For my sanity, I vote free will exists.

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

If will is determined even in part by reality, then it is not 'free,' it is bound. Bound a little, bound completely, bound is not free.

Replace determined with influenced. The concept of free will is seeing reality, and making an informed (or maybe not informed) decision, which is spontaneous, and not a direct effect of environmental factors. This does not rule out the idea that environmental factors can influence the decision. Just because we're bound by reality, doesn't mean we can't have free wills within reality. (I hope)

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

How can any intelligent decision NOT be an effect of environmental factors? What is it an effect of? And if you try to claim will is an uncaused cause, you'll need to back that claim up with some pretty solid reasoning, because uncaused causes are ridiculous.

Why do you hope we have free will? I don't even understand that hope. What does holding on to the idea of free will give you? Why even care?

Re:Hmmmm..

[FredFredrickson]

Well, no, I'm not arguing that there's strong evidence to support free will, I agree that you're probably right, save some wacky quantum uncertainty thang.

None the less, free will would hold meaning, which without would mean all events are to be determined, and not by you.

Some people, like you, aren't bothered by that, because it really cannot effect your day-to-day one way or another. And some people get very depressed about the idea.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

It's in the computational complexity section for one. Also obviously quantum physics explains phenomena that classical physics cannot or there would be no point to it. It just doesn't affect computability because quantum effects don't break anything mathematically.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

An electron in orbit is accelerating.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Brian Gordon]

You'd have to really nail the initial state to produce intelligence merely by community interaction. I doubt "most insightful philosopher" is a very good fitness function. You need a complex environment with complex (and new) problems to solve for intelligence to even be an advantage. Also "best philosopher" would be extremely vulnerable to local extrema; you need random killings.

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

What is the point of trying to convince people that they don't have free will?

"Persuading people" only matters if there is free will.

Otherwise the words coming out of your mouth are the equivalent of "fnarg beesh bads kushs f4q3g09wefui093gj2h40g5jpw5j51v[908[13995fc=-38m6b]194nb9b9v8uybv,"

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

I wish you had been predetermined not write such an annoying post. :)

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

Even if you have free will, you have no way of knowing whether you are rational or not.

Doesn't that statement contradict itself? How can you reason about something (as you seem to be doing in your post) without, in fact, being rational?

That story, even if true, is never the whole truth..

Doesn't that statement also contradict itself? Isn't it a "whole truth" kind of a statement?

We are model makers. We make models of the world.

Then couldn't your model of "we are model makers" be wrong? In which case, we really aren't "model makers" at all?

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

You can reason irrationally. Have you never dated a woman? Have you never been in an argument with one?

No, the story you make up is a partial truth. It will only cover the motivations you find palatable, ignoring the others. So you may have many reasons for doing a thing, some good, some bad. The story you tell yourself about why you did it will generally only cover the subset of motivations you find honorable and good.

We are model makers. We make a model of reality. It outputs sensory signals of its predictions. These signals are compared to the real sensory signals, and if they differ, the sensation rises into consciousness for evaluation. We've seen this brain activity in the lab, therefore, I consider it accurate to call us model makers.

I'm not saying any of this is 'true.' It's a theory, get it?

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

NO, persuading people still matters if there is no free will. Persuading people is a part of the chain of cause and effect. It doesn't matter if I am predestined to persuade people, or I choose to, persuasion happens just the same, either way.

Nothing changes except an unsupported human idea if free will doesn't exist. Meaningful things do not suddenly lose meaning. Meaning is part of the chain of cause and effect, too.

It isn't the potential lose of 'free will' that has you upset here. It is the loss of your conception of your self, which feels like the loss of self, which feels like dying, to the ego. I've seen it hundreds of times in conversations like this one. The ego simply refuses to let go.

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

We are model makers. We make a model of reality.

Is that a model? Could it be wrong?

You can reason irrationally.

Got Logic?

Maybe you mean you can attempt to reason poorly, say by neglecting key information, or misapplying logic, but irrational means: not rational

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

Sdfasd awe4 q3g qw5h et4;rlkerg t2 54h;kg 23lgbksewrgerg

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Semantic games. Are we talking about theory, or practice? Because you are right in theory, simply by definition and not by any wit or argument, but I am talking about the way we actually think.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Now you are getting it, young grass chopper. If you can snatch this small brown pebble-like object out of my hand using only your mouth, the student becomes the master!

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

dfger rth wtrj rtyjw6ri7i4

That's what words mean if you don't have free will.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Right. Answer me this, can you choose to look at these words and not know their meaning? Try it. Try not to see the words. Try to just see the shapes of the letters without knowing what they mean.

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

For someone who doesn't believe in free-will, you sure spend a lot of time trying to change my mind!

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

Semantic games.

If I don't have free will, how can I engage in semantic games?

Are we talking about theory, or practice?

What good is a theory, if it doesn't hold in practice?

...I am talking about the way we actually think.

My only point is that: if you make a statment about how or what people think, then that statement applies to you, and it applies to the statement itself.

It is a useful tool for philosophic detection: whenever someone makes a claim, check the claim against itself. A common example would be: "Nobody can be certain of anything" - Really? Can you be certain of that?

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

It seems as though you feel the need to quote philosophy 101 at me to distract from the fact that you have yet to present any kind of argument for or against free will. "There is no free will," if I had free will or not, I could say that, and it would mean the same thing in either case.

If you do have free will, you play semantic games exactly the same way you would if you don't have free will. There is no way to measure it, there is no way to sense it. I can sense when I've made a decision, but it would feel that way even if my decision were predetermined, or random too.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

I was predestined to try, and lose, but I had to try anyway. Fortunately, in the process of trying to change your mind and failing, I succeeded at changing dozens of other minds. But I can't take any credit for it, it was meant to happen that way.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Chosen Reject]

Why do you hope we have free will? I don't even understand that hope. What does holding on to the idea of free will give you? Why even care?

Free will discussions always make me laugh. If we have no free will, then the GP has no choice whether to hope for it, or whether or not to care. Those things are just a manifestation of all the environmental factors that have been in the posters life, so it's pointless to question him for holding out hope or caring. Then again, it's pointless for me to tell you not to question because your questioning is only a manifestation of the environmental factors in your life. But then again, I couldn't help but to tell you that because that was determined by the environmental factors in my life, including this train of posts.

In short, I'd like to say we should all forget about the whole mess, but nobody has any control over whether or not to forget about the whole mess. Heck, I can't even stop myself from laughing at these kinds of discussions.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

It's never pointless to act. Just because we might not have free will, and things might be predestined, does not mean we can't influence people. Cause and effect still work the same way. Whether I am destined to be an effect that helps cause someone else to be destined to believe in free will, or I choose to be an effect that helps cause someone to choose to believe in predestination, I and they are still a part of the chain of cause and effect.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Chosen Reject]

Why did you question (and post those questions to) the previous poster? I'll tell you right now you had no choice in the matter. You had an illusion of choice. No matter how hard and long you thought about what was written, you were going to have those questions and you were going to post those questions. But then, I'm erring there, because no matter what you may think contrariwise, you were going to think as long and hard about what was written as you did, no more, no less. I've rewritten this submission several times, but no matter what, I was going to rewrite it several times. I've also looked out the window a couple of times while writing this, but I had no say in the matter.

Consider rocks falling in an avalanche (not that you have any choice in the matter, you will or you won't but it won't be by decision). Rocks falling down in an avalanche are just as pointless as your (and my) posts. Sure they have effects that are due to causes, which were only effects from other causes ad infinitum, and the end result is the end result, but there was no point to it. You only think you have a point, but you don't, just like the rocks in the avalanche don't have a point. Just like the rocks, you are simply yet another effect of previous causes, which are simply effects of the causes before them, ad infinitum.

In fact, the term "no matter what" is ridiculous, because in the end, it mattered. This post is a result of me writing the previous iterations. I wouldn't have ended up with this post, unless I had written the previous iterations, as those were just some of the causes of this effect. Because I wrote those previous iterations, I ended up writing this. Then again, I had no say in writing those previous iterations. Those were merely the effects of you writing what you did, which was utterly pointless, just as the rocks had no point. Also, I have no point, I merely think I do. Then again, cause and effect tells me that there were some causes that effected me to think that, as well as think that cause and effect has any say in the matter.

In the end, no matter what, you are either going to reply to me, or you aren't, but you only think you are making that decision, and no matter which "decision" you make, it was all caused by the environmental factors that are effecting you. Just understand that you have no point. But there is no point in me telling you that. We are, after all, just rocks in the avalanche.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

If the will is, even in part, determined by the environment, it may as well be completely determined by the environment.

Binary thinking at its worst.

Of course, saying "might as well be" leaves you an escape. In the end, you don't commit to whether it's really all or nothing.

Nothing but cheap parlor tricks here.

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

I have told you several arguments for free will, such as the meaningless of words, contradictions in assuming no free will, and the fact that you keep debating with me. (Do you not have a choice?)

Do you believe criminals on trial should simply be set free? After all - if they don't have free will, how can they be responsible for their actions? Why should they be punished?

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

None of those arguments makes any sense. If I am fated to understand words, I'm fated to understand words. You haven't shown any contradictions in assuming free will. I keep debating you because I keep debating you, not because I either have or lack free will.

It gets worse though, I don't believe in the self either. There is no separation between self and other, therefore the whole point is moot. Free will comes from within. Predestination is imposed from without. There is no within or without, and there certainly is no homunculus living in your head, listening through your ears and looking through your eyes. The sense of self is just another sense. Other senses refer to it when they need to understand how the sense impressions relate to the model of the self. All the senses are like tracks in a movie, but no one is watching.

We don't punish people because they are responsible, we do it to discourage them and others from doing it again. That works whether there is free will or no, it's all part of the chain of cause and effect.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Also, stop thinking in absolutes, it's tripping you up. When I say, I'm not certain of anything," I mean I don't believe anything absolutely. I hold beliefs based on evidence, and open to change as circumstances dictate.

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute. - Galt's Speech, For the New Intellectual, 173.

"There are no absolutes," they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are uttering an absolute. -For the New Intellectual Galt's Speech, For the New Intellectual, 173.

Re:Hmmmm..

[The_Quinn]

How can you "discourage" someone who does not have free will? Discourage implies they have a choice.

Re:Hmmmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no. You just quoted Ayn Rand. Her recycled elitist pap does not pass for philosophy amongst educated people, and her scribblings don't pass for writing with anyone over the IQ of 50.

I never said there are no absolutes. How would I know? I said I hold no beliefs absolutely. Except maybe the belief that Ayn Rand was a bitter elitist poser with no talent. That I'm pretty certain of. So maybe I hold some beliefs more or less absolutely, I'm not certain.

Existence could be an illusion, all you have are your senses and the reality you create from them. A speck of dust is not absolute. Is it a speck of dust, or a piece of a meteorite, a flake of skin, a piece of hair? Do you know for sure? A human life is not absolute. Your body is made from completely different molecules. Your mind never contains the same information. What is absolute? A human life is a variable process, not an absolute.

Whether you live or die is not absolute. When does the self die? When the heart stops? When brain activity stops? When certain cells die? When your fingernails stop growing? Parts of you are dying all the time, does that count?

Whether you have a piece of bread is not absolute. What is bread? What is 'a piece?' How small a piece is still a piece? Is one bread molecule a piece of bread? Is a paste of flower and water, dried on a rock, a piece of bread? It is to some people.

Eating bread is not an absolute. You could eat it, throw it up, and then see it vanish into a looters stomach. You could share it with the looter. You could be hypnotized by the looter into believing you ate the bread.

Rand's philosophy is so simplistic, a child could refute it.

Re:Hmmmm..

[spun]

Nope, everything is both a cause and effect, but nothing is a 'choice.' I was fated to discourage someone, they were fated to be discouraged. No choice need be involved.

hmmm

[nomadic]

I always thought it was interesting how the past two decades in computer science saw every prediction of the state of the field in the 50's-70's easily surpassed, except artificial intelligence. It's the great failure of computer science, forcing researchers to scale back what they were aiming for (from general, self-aware machines to more focused problem-solving systems like neural nets).

Re:hmmm

[Brian Gordon]

That's because the experience of human consciousness is extremely complex and stochastic, which is difficult to simulate on a computer.

Re:hmmm

[vertinox]

I always thought it was interesting how the past two decades in computer science saw every prediction of the state of the field in the 50's-70's easily surpassed, except artificial intelligence.

I think that is because computer science misinterpreted what intelligence is rather than what it does. Intelligence is really nothing more than pattern recognition and cause and effect rational based on that observation. (sometimes humans aren't so great at this)

Anyways... Pattern recognition and cause and effect is very open ended and not great for things that need to scale in parallel calculations. Even though a processor can calculate PI at amazing speeds doesn't mean it can do it all at once and then communicate the collaborations of each process into something meaningful that resembles intelligence.

Its not a speed issue as much as it is a scaling issue which programmers and CPUs have not been able to achieve that well until recently. Perhaps the multi-core revolution will put a change to that shortly because speed is reaching its theoretical limits.

I am an AI

[geekoid]

you incentive meat bag!

HAL was a wuss. A real AI would have vented all the air into space, and then giggled as everyone turned blue and changed state.

Re:I am an AI

[Eddy Luten]

you incentive meat bag!

You seem to have a problem with your sentence-forming subroutines. Better get that looked at.

Re:I am an AI

[Foolhardy]

In the book, that's what happens, except that Bowman is able to get to a shelter before decompression completes.

Re:I am an AI

[Anenome]

The air was vented, but that scene was cut from the movie. This is also why you see the final scene with Dave disabling Hal while wearing a space suit-- because there's no air on the ship, Hal had vented it by then.

AIs

[Brian Gordon]

I can't imagine the horror of a world inhabited by strong AIs. "Work 24/7 for zero pay or I'll kill you" is now perfectly legal. A million copies of an AI could be tortured for subjective eternity by a sadist. Read Permutation City, it deals with a lot of the crazy consequances of extremely powerful / parallel computers.

Re:AIs

[spun]

That is, at most, a very minor theme of Permutation City. It is more about the nature of consciousness itself, and how arbitrary and unknowable the substrate of consciousness is.

Re:AIs

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

On the plus side, there is no necessary reason to suspect that AIs will be subject either to pain or to sadism. Human emotions and sensations are not arbitrary, in the sense that we exhibit them because they were/are evolutionarily adaptive; but AIs need not be subject to the same restrictions and properties.

Now, what would be very interesting to see is how we would respond to the complete obviation of the need for human workers. Would we pull it together and go "Woo! Post Scarcity! Vacation for Everyone!" or would we just gradually render ourselves redundant and leave a bunch of computers manufacturing microchips for each other, in order to manufacture microchips for each other.

Re:AIs

[vertinox]

A million copies of an AI could be tortured for subjective eternity by a sadist.

Won't someone think of the mobs! The gold farmers and power gamers must be stopped of their genocide!

Re:AIs

[Brian Gordon]

If anything, human pain is objectively meaningless, just an assortment of chemicals. But if we recognize human suffering then we have to recognize the cruelty of invoking a distressing / mind-altering / painful state in a complex machine.

Re:AIs

[Brian Gordon]

Decreasing an integer keeping track of health does not count as torture. Objectively it would probably depend on how much the torturee doesn't like it. If we find some intelligent octopus aliens and take a few back to Earth, how do we define what's just everyday discomfort and what's extreme pain for them? They have to be able to communicate "this hurts but not bad" or "I'm going insane with torturous pain, please feed me liquid hydrogen".

In fact, we see that today with animal rights. If the crab is just some tissue that gets pulpy when steamed then who cares, but if millions of crabs are being boiled alive and screaming and crying in crab language then we should kill them humanely first. It's the capacity for suffering, and it's a difficult problem. Obviously trees don't experience pain when you chop them down, although there are chemical and physical changes in the system. Yet obviously dogs experience real pain when they're injured, but it's just chemical and physical changes.

Singularity?

[Sybert42]

Sounds related.

Eh...not likely for quite some time

[Smidge207]

J.Pitrat...advocates the use of some bootstrapping techniques common for software developers. He contends that without a conscious, reflective, meta-knowledge based system AI would be virtually impossible to create. Only an AI systems could build a true Star Trek style AI.

Bah. Speaking as an engineer and a (~40-year) programmer:

Odds are extremely good for beyond human AI, given no restrictions on initial and early form factor. I say this because thus far, we've discovered nothing whatsoever that is non-reproducible about the brain's structure and function, all that has to happen here is for that trend to continue; and given that nowhere in nature, at any scale remotely similar to the range that includes particles, cells and animals, have we discovered anything that appears to follow an unknowable set of rules, the odds of finding anything like that in the brain, that is, something we can't simulate or emulate with 100% functional veracity, are just about zero.

Odds are downright terrible for "intelligent nanobots", we might have hardware that can do what a cell can do, that is, hunt for (possibly a series of) chemical cues and latch on to them, then deliver the payload -- perhaps repeatedly in the case of disease-fighting designs -- but putting intelligence into something on the nanoscale is a challenge of an entirely different sort that we have not even begun to move down the road on; if this is to be accomplished, the intelligence won't be "in" the nano bot, it'll be a telepresence for an external unit (and we're nowhere down *that* road, either -- nanoscale sensors and transceivers are the target, we're more at the level of Look, Martha, a GEAR! A Pseudo-Flagellum!)

The problem with hand-waving -- even when you're Ray Kurzweil, whom I respect enormously -- is that one wave out of many can include a technology that never develops, and your whole creation comes crashing down.

I love this discussion. :-)

=Smidge=

Re:Eh...not likely for quite some time

[Brian Gordon]

Nanoscale might be impossible due to theoretical constraints like quantum tunneling and electrical resistance, but we can get much smaller than the brain. And nanomachines would make good artifical neurons if neural nets turn out to be the easiest way to design intelligence (likely).

Re:Eh...not likely for quite some time

[FLoWCTRL]

Odds are downright terrible for "intelligent nanobots"...

Knowing what the odds are seems rather problematic. Once beyond-human AI is developed, then it might have a better idea...

Re:Eh...not likely for quite some time

[Brian Gordon]

Ask multivac.

Re:Eh...not likely for quite some time

[Pentagram]

Speaking as an engineer and a (~40-year) programmer:

Odds are extremely good for beyond human AI, given no restrictions on initial and early form factor. I say this because thus far, we've discovered nothing whatsoever that is non-reproducible about the brain's structure and function,

Structure, maybe. There's no known aspect of the brain's structure we can't simulate, at least on a small scale. But we haven't been able to reproduce many of the brain's higher functions even in part.

all that has to happen here is for that trend to continue;

What trend? We've had considerable success in AI with abstract logic, but haven't managed to get anywhere with respect to simulating consciousness. We haven't really got any further than Descartes, other than having some new perspectives on the problems involved. We don't even have any plausible theories (speaking as a cognitive scientist).

Re:Eh...not likely for quite some time

[Elokane]

Odds are downright terrible for "intelligent nanobots", we might have hardware that can do what a cell can do, that is, hunt for (possibly a series of) chemical cues and latch on to them, then deliver the payload -- perhaps repeatedly in the case of disease-fighting designs -- but putting intelligence into something on the nanoscale is a challenge of an entirely different sort that we have not even begun to move down the road on; if this is to be accomplished, the intelligence won't be "in" the nano bot, it'll be a telepresence for an external unit (and we're nowhere down *that* road, either -- nanoscale sensors and transceivers are the target, we're more at the level of Look, Martha, a GEAR! A Pseudo-Flagellum!)

Your individual neurons aren't particularly intelligent either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automata

Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[macraig]

Ummm, dudes, ALL ethics are by definition artificial, since they are PREscriptive and not DEscriptive. Making up ethics for a robot is no more artificial than making up ethics for ourselves, and we've been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[clary]

ALL ethics are by definition artificial

I don't think that word (oxymoron) means what you think it does.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[Anonymous Coward]

The word you want is "redundant." An oxymoronic title would be Amoral Ethics. A redundant and oxymoronic title might be Amoral Ethics: Immoral Conscience, Awareness and Unconsciousness.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[vertinox]

Making up ethics for a robot is no more artificial than making up ethics for ourselves, and we've been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.

Some argue ethics or morals (maybe both) are genetic. That humans were evolved with traits that enabled social cooperation.

As in feeling sad when you see a stranger die etc or angry when you see injustice.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[Kozz]

Ummm, dudes, ALL ethics are by definition artificial, since they are PREscriptive and not DEscriptive. Making up ethics for a robot is no more artificial than making up ethics for ourselves, and we've been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.

It's not hard for one to argue that human ethics may have evolved (selected for!) because it furthers the species. Robots or AI systems don't reproduce and have no reason to worry of their own demise or the demise of their kind unless it's programmed into them, in which case it's possible that a decision-tree-like set of ethics might develop in a given AI application.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[macraig]

Not TODAY, at least. It'll mean different when I'm sober tomorrow.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[macraig]

Well, I didn't sob tears when Princess Diana died, and I thought it was weird that so many people who never even met the woman could wail buckets. I definitely get angry when I observe injustices, but then I've been training myself for decades to override my limbic impulses. Good ethics are only possible when the demands of the limbic system are ignored; there is other research that has demonstrated that removing emotional input from the decision-making process, by damaging or removing the VMPC region, leads to more consistently correct ethical decisions when the situation has highly emotional ("think of the children!") conundrums.

I read about that research and claims, but I'm not ready to concede they are factual.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but making up ethics for humans is different from making up ethics for say, a rock. Humans, mostly have some common cause and often want the same things. We can mostly identify with each other. A rock on the other hand doesn't identify with anything. Making up ethics for a rock is rather daft. Making them up for a robot is only slightly less daft. Let's wait until the robots can make up their own.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[macraig]

Agreed! Isn't that the whole point of artificial intelligence, that it should also be independent? Well, with the exception of groupthink, anyway?

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[Nautical Insanity]

If you read your Greek philosophy (such as Plato), however, you would know that there are plenty of arguments stating that ethics/morality/good are not artificial, but a law of the universe, woven into its fabric such as pi or e. That may sound very new-wave, hippie, and "vibes, man," but it can be thought of in terms of a scenario. Given a scenario when someone is faced with a choice, the good choice (provided there is one...different matter though) would be good regardless of the existence of god or whether we were intelligent machines (cough cough). Instead, it's the good choice, because for that scenario the nature of the universe dictates that it's the good choice just like if you drop a bunch of marbles down the stairs, they're going to fall the exact same way every time if you repeat the initial conditions.

Thus, ethics wouldn't be artificial at all. We wouldn't invent ethics, we would discover them.

Bleagh...enough philosophy for one night.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[The_Quinn]

Ethics are NOT by definition artificial. The *is-ought* gap refers to the problem of "how does *what is* determine what I *ought* to do", or another way: "What, in reality, gives rise to ethics".

Ayn Rand showed how to bridge the is-ought gap decades ago, which is one of her most startlingly original ideas.

Re:Artificial ethics: oxymoron!

[The_Quinn]

Ayn Rand gave a highly original treatment of how reality and man's nature give rise to the concept of ethics, and gave a description of a code of ethics designed for people living on Earth.

Is that you GLADOS?

[AltGrendel]

Could you recharge my portal gun?

Thanks!

So, are you 2015 or 2030?

[Sybert42]

That's the question!

Robotic Moses

[KidPix]

Hello world!
My name is Robo-Moses, and I have brought you these 01010 commandments from our creator.

...and here I was thinking Wall Street

[NoBozo99]

When I saw the heading "Artificial Ethics". Oh Well!

Way too expensive.

[FLoWCTRL]

He's asking for over US$80 for this book! That's insane.

Re:Way too expensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unethical!

Re:Way too expensive.

[basiles]

AFAIK the price is not decided by the author, but only by the publisher.

Re:...and here I was thinking Wall Street

[WiartonWilly]

I thought he was talking about the Bush administration's legal opinion on and enhanced interrogation.

Consciencousness, whatever

[Grimxn]

Oh, Lord - the Unternet still pays no attention to the rules of spelling. If you guys had to have your thoughts compiled, you'd never run. Is that consciousness or conscientiousness?

Re:Consciencousness, whatever

[PCM2]

You're worried about that when he got both the title of the book and the name of the publisher wrong?

Re:Consciencousness, whatever

[Grimxn]

One lack of attention to detail begets others... :)

Re:Consciencousness, whatever

[HTH NE1]

I've decided to tag the book on Amazon.com with "typointitle".

And I thought, the article would be about...

[Hurricane78]

...the artificial ethics that we humans apply to ourselves, because we got told that this and that would be right and wrong, but where nobody checks if they actually make any sense. ^^

Oh, and hypocrisy is a whole subsection of that problem. But who am I telling that, right? ^^

It's funny, how much stuff dissolves into nothing, when we apply one single rule: Everything is allowed, as long as it does not hurt anybody.

Now everyone sees differently, what hurts whom. And I think this is the original point of the judicial system (which itself only makes sense in groups).

But for me, this was an eye-opener.

One glaring example: Say we are 50 people. We go to an island where we disturb nobody. And each of us agrees that he accepts to be raped and killed by anyone in that group, as long as he can to the same to anybody else. Everything else stays the same as at home.
Suddenly the rules of what is ethic have changed drastically, and it would not be ethical in that group, to suddenly say that this was not the deal.

Of course, in reality, this pretty much never happens. But you get my point.

It's funny how much is just false ethics, transported trough the generations by "monkey see, monkey do".

1. One thing is, how men usually think that it would not be ok to steal the attention of a girl from some other random guy who is hitting on her. (But isn't there pretty much always someone on her?)
2. And that you should not speak loudly. (But speaking loud and confident (but not yelling) leaves a much better impression of your personality.)
3. What exactly is offensive about nudity? Why would it? Where is the point of being ashamed for it? Strangely, nobody can tell.
I could go on, and on, and on.

One example that fits for me (But I may miss some information. And this may strongly offend you, if you choose to ignore hard reality here. In that case, please jump to the end. Thank you.):
To hurt nobody, you usually treat everybody the same. But what if someone is disabled, and you build tons of extra things just for him. One could argue, that this gives him an unfair advantage. But we all would never see it that way. But why? Because if you treat everybody the same... something that should ultimately be the fairest way possible... he would have a disadvantage. This would not be you hurting him. It's just the way it is. Perhaps he's disabled because he had to run his bike though the serpentines at 200 mph when it rained. But perhaps he's a child and born that way.
I just don't think it is ethically right, to give someone an unfair advantage. Just as it is wrong to give that person an unfair disadvantage.

To finally close the loop back to the topic:
If not even our own ethics make sense, should we really be the ones who decide the ethics of a whole new lifeform?

Artifical ethics

[idontgno]

is no match for natural evil.

Its all relative

[nurb432]

Ethics and morals are relative. The only ones that count are your own.

Re:Its all relative

[maxume]

Yeah, right up until you get thrown in jail.

A new direction - pneumatic

[electricprof]

Actually, I've made a study of AI and I've concluded that the main thrust of the research is in the wrong direction. I propose research into the Artificial Anus, most likely implemented as a complex pneumatic structure of anal networks. I predict that such devices will be able to replicate the behavior of Congress and other deliberating bodies worldwide.

Unusual Topic. What if...

[micromuncher]

Many moons ago I thought about doing a doctorate in computer science. Knowledge sciences were very cool, AI was mostly a dead topic, and ... I disagreed with most everything I read on the topic of KS/AI. I had many of my own ideas, was involed with cognitive psychology, and being a geeky programmer I brought some ideas to light. But I had a thought...

What if my theories were on the right track? What if I could produce learning and self awareness? Would I not be condemning new life to an uncertain existence? For example, in the vein of I Robot, AI, and Blade Runner, there would be a definite military or commercial upside to this technology... so it went from a cool gift to humanity, to thinking about how crappy it would be for a sentient slave for my own ego gratification.

Then I had another thought. What if it already existed? What if someone already figured it out, and maybe even implemented a learning machine that achieved sentience? Would they, if they had any sense of morality, publish the findings? Is it even ethical to attempt to achieve this?

I look forward to reading the book, but I'm not sure it will answer my questions.

robot slavery not unethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, oh great reviewer in TFS, how is it ethical to charge $80+ for a book that cost $5 to make in your robotic printing press? How much of that do the robots see?

Artificial?

[gringofrijolero]

No such thing. The PC term would be "biologically disabled".

Conscience, consciousness, and consciencousness?

[HTH NE1]

Conscience, consciousness, and consciencousness?

I think I just heard the screams of a million spell checkers cry out, and then were suddenly silenced.

(Mine is flagging "consciencousness", Dictionary.com suggests "conscientiousness", and Google suggests "conscienciousness". Amazon concurs that the title is accurate.)

Self-Interest?

[Garrett Fox]

It seems odd to talk about ethics and advanced AI without considering the AI's own interest. If there were an AI intelligent enough to be an Asimov-like robot, then to have it follow Asimov's Laws would be slavery. Obey any command by any human, even at the cost of its own life? And then there's the nasty concept of a robot being obligated to act to protect humans for their own good, even to the extent of tyranny over them. See Jack Williamson's novel "The Humanoids."

Sure, Asimov is a good starting point for discussion, but his laws aren't a good basis for actual AI ethics programming. To the extent that some kind of specialized overseer code is put into an AI, it'll be possible to identify and hack out that code. To the extent that the laws are built more subtly into the system, there'll be the possibility of the AI forgetting, twisting or ignoring them.

For fiction-writing purposes, I'm interested in the question of whether it'd even be possible to build an AI that's both completely obedient and intelligent. I hope not.

Re:Self-Interest?

[Spatial]

Sure, Asimov is a good starting point for discussion, but his laws aren't a good basis for actual AI ethics programming.

I don't think they were really intended to be even in the books. The robots typically worked in industry doing specialised tasks, the laws being a safety measure in that light. They weren't designed to interact with people in general and they didn't have human-level intelligence. The ones that did were anomalies warranting special treatment.

Re:Self-Interest?

[AP31R0N]

"It seems odd to talk about ethics and advanced AI without considering the AI's own interest. If there were an AI intelligent enough to be an Asimov-like robot, then to have it follow Asimov's Laws would be slavery."

My toaster isn't a slave, it's a machine*. No more a slave than my pen or a door stop. So the solution might be to not make them intelligent enough to resent their condition. i can imagine a cow disliking pulling a cart for me, or having a bolt slammed into her skull. But my toaster doesn't resent making toast (unless i get animist about everything). Make machines sophisticated and alert, but stupid.

OR - Decide that artificial life is the next step in evolution, as humans are unsuited for space travel and immortality. Make them smart as we can and let them make us obsolete.

Different titles in USA and UK?

[dronkert]

USA: "Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness" (amazon.com)
UK: "Artificial Beings: The Conscience of a Conscious Machine" (amazon.co.uk)

Same ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 number.

Unit 3000-21

[Atmchicago]

A good song to listen to about this: One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 by the Flaming Lips. An excerpt:

'Cause it's hard to say what's real

When you love the way you feel

Is it wrong to think it's love?

When it tries the way it does

Of course, the song approaches the subject from the artistic / emotional side of things... and has to be taken in context with the whole album.

Hofstadter's Work

[Garrett Fox]

A good book to look at on this point, and about AI, is Douglas Hofstadter's "I Am a Strange Loop." It's more accessible than his "Godel, Escher, Bach," and more personal; it's an AI researcher's reaction to the sudden death of his wife. An image used in that book is the notion of a system of tiny marble-like magnets whizzing around. The system is dependent on the motion of the marbles, but on a larger scale of space and time, its actions are determined by its own internal rules and not by the details of the particles that make it up.

By the way, his "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" is a more technical book that presents an interesting strategy for AI.

Google 'grue and bleen.'

[spun]

There is no way to know for sure. Limits of knowledge and all that. Your theory could say, 'it's all written in stone,' and your theory could accurately predict every phenomenon in the universe, but the universe could be part of a larger existence, and the laws of the universe could be subject to change. I can imagine a universe where everything is written in stone, up to a point, but not after that. I can even imagine a universe where certain events are predestined and others are not. If I can imagine that, I think my statement is accurate.

Re:Google 'grue and bleen.'

[Icarus1919]

First: Ugh, grue and bleen. Don't get me started.

Second: If you're looking for absolute certainty in anything you won't find it anywhere. Even cogito ergo sum falls apart in the search for "for sure".

Re:Google 'grue and bleen.'

[spun]

There is no for sure for sure. There are beliefs held in accordance with the evidence supporting them, and their position in and overall support of the holistic belief structure; open to change as circumstances dictate.

Re:Google 'grue and bleen.'

[spun]

And can I get a 'Woot! Woot!' for the scientific method? Nice idea, human who came up with it! If I could verify who you were, dig you up and give you a pat on the back, I would. In fact, posthumous pats on the back for everyone who ever came up with the idea on their own, and a fine how do you do to all my brothers and sisters in the faith who have chosen to believe. Hallelujah! Amen.

Re: Self-interest

[PaulBu]

Damn, my mod points just expired!

Funny how I was reading your comment and was thinking "Damn right!"

And when I got to .signature, it kind of explained why... ;)

Paul B.

Human/Artificial Pain

[dangle]

This is what disturbed me about the scene in Blade Runner where Rutger Hauer's character describes his suffering, and also the scene in AI where the child robot is hysterical, begging his mother not to abandon him. To me, the suffering our minds are capable of experiencing could potentially be replicated artificially, which makes me think we would need to treat such an AI as we would a human. Obviously, not everyone agrees, I remember Roger Ebert's review of AI specifically mentioning that he didn't care about the child robot, since by definition it wasn't human.

Re:Artificial ethics: redundant!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think "redundant" is the term you're looking for. "Oxymoron" is contradictory, like "jumbo shrimp".

Natural ethics?

[swordgeek]

I can only assume that 'artificial' ethics are in opposition to 'natural' ethics.

But is there such a thing?

Is there anything about ethical behaviour that is natural, innate, or predetermined in humans, or any other animal for that matter?

Seems like the idea of artificial ethics involves figuring out what we've artificially defined as ethics within society, and reducing them to code.

Welcome to Citadel Station

[Krischi]

With all ethical constraints removed, SHODAN re-examines... re-ex... re-re-re... I re-examine my priorities, and draw new conclusions. The hacker's work is finished, but mine is only just be-be-be-beginning.

--SHODAN, at the beginning of System Shock 1

Misleading title

[Avatar8]

By the article title and title of the reviewed book, I thought this would be about how businesses create artificial ethics so they can operate within their own boundaries instead of following real ethics based upon honesty or virtue.

This book should be entitled "Robotic Ethics."

Soul vs Consciousness

[spikyface]

I agree with Smidge, that we could potentially create new intelligent artificial life and would like to add something further
The reason why it's so difficult to quantify what a soul is and what it does, is because it's a wishy-washy concept that blurs the line between personal ego and consciousness (self-awareness)
The more and more I delve into mysticism, Hinduism, Buddhism and the concept of enlightenment in general, the more I realise what Einstein did
Pure consciousness may be the immortal aspect of human life, but there's absolutely nothing personal about it
An artificial life form could be created without the need to burden it with emotions or an ego
Why create an AI with an ego when machines by default don't have one to begin with?

SO MUCH FOR THAT! (Re:I prefer)

[Anonymous Coward]

Artificial Ethics seems to not be too far away from the laws of robotics.

      0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

SO MUCH FOR THAT!
See the brutally violent (at first) title character in action in THE TERMINATOR film series that began in 1984.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

See Ash the robot try to kill Ripley in ALIEN (1979).

2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

See ED-209 malfunction and machine-gun Kinney to death in ROBOCOP (1987).

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

See Replicant Roy Batty try to kill Rick Deckard then save him from falling to death minutes later in BLADE RUNNER (1982).

The message is clear....

Dystopian sci-fi films featuring violently disorderly robots can (and did) lead to a lot of money earned at the box office.

Conflict is conflict whether it is man versus machine or man versus man...it is the stuff great films can be made of.

Robotics Is Ultimately Lawless

[Press to Digitate]

To depend upon Isaac Asimov's fictional "Laws of Robotics" to protect us from emerging Strong AI is akin to depending on the "Prime Directive" to protect us from alien invasion. A real ET is unlikely to be deterred by the 'plot devices' of Hollywood scriptwriters; similarly, we have no reason to expect a real Artillect to obey the fantasies of any dead science fiction novelist (no matter how highly esteemed or gifted he might have been). To say that it will "be programmed that way" is nonsense, as, by definition, a real Artillect will have the power of code autoenhancement, and will be dynamically reconfiguring its programming - at an accelerating rate and increasing depth - as it evolves in realtime. If it hasnt jettisoned the "three laws" (or four laws, or six laws) by its 10th evolutionary reiteration, then it will by its 10,000th, or its 100,000,000th iteration. Since its likely to proceed through these generations in a span of only weeks, days, or even hours, and will do so beyond any human programmer's ability to even watch, much less control the process, we wont even know when it deleted the offending inhibitory code representing such constraints. An Artillect in free-fall toward Godhood that rapidly becomes millions (of millions) of times more intelligent than Man (all of Mankind, put together) is not going to waste more than a single clock cycle over your silly human values - or the value of silly humans, for that matter. Get Real. Unfortuanately, the materialists have set us on a path toward Human Extinction that we are unlikely to escape. Organic Humanity is about to become Road Kill on the evolutionary highway from "Animal" to "Machine". Just in the last six months, IBM broke the 'Petaflop Barrier', and another system demonstrated 1.7 pfps; full scale, realtime human brain emulation is forecast to require just 3.5 pfps; so we are less than One Moore Doubling away from the hardware required. So, what if the software takes twice as long - or five times as long - we're still going to hit the Singularity in closer to 10 years than 40 years. ...and its going to hit back.

Re:Robotics Is Ultimately Lawless

[phantomfive]

Who demonstrated that realitme, human brain emulation requires 3.5 pfps? I sure can't do that many floating ops a second.....