Is the Creation of Artificial Humans with Human Ability Real - Research Paper Example

Bringsjord’s Zombie Attack Introduction The philosophical debate regarding existence forms of humanity rages on with philosophers never seeming to converge on a common ground in the topics involved. The debate extends to the heated thinking and determination of building in artificial people, otherwise known as computationalism. This discussion text will contrast Dennett’s ideas of successful computationalism, or the ability of creating robots to function exactly like humans with Bringsjord’s opposing arguments in which he states that the project of building artificial people who he refers to as “zombies” will eventually crumble and fall, in addition to that never at one time shall an artificial creation equal or even outdo human thinking and cognitive ability. In addition, the essay will evaluate the two arguments and give a personal supported opinion that is against computationalism, the reason being the impossibility of scientists to create systems similar to humans’, thus the weakness of Dennett’s argument. Dennett (1994) argues that someday, robots will be made that will be able to function just like humans do. To him, human beings are “…a sort of robot ourselves…with extraordinarily complex self-controlling, self-sustaining physical mechanisms, designed by natural selection…” He admits that it is a wild ambition to imagine that a human replication can succeed in triumphing over nature by creating an artificial human, but it is not unachievable. The main point of his argument is based on his perspective that a consciousness machine is in no way different from a perpetual one in that both can be programmed to execute specific functions by use of physical processes. The only constriction that [his] project would encounter are the expensive costs of assembling billions of minute mechanisms to direct the robots’ actions. To better understand Dennett’s stand, it is important to highlight factors that qualify robots as zombies or just mechanical creations; First of all, a robot is a material thing, whereas it is common sense that consciousness requires materialism to exist, a theory of dualism. What this means is that what a man can create will only utilize materials such as metals, plastic, wires, chips and so on, but these are never going to make anything with the ability to think on its own. The reason for that is because there is more to the human being than just the material part; the mind which is not physical, and that is what controls intelligence. Dennett counters this perspective as follows; he defines the notion of immaterial stuff as “mere superstition since all body processes are today defined and explained and understood through today’s biology” (Dennett, 1994). Why then, he asks, should understanding and creating a mechanism similar to the brain be impossible? Secondly, a robot is an inorganic creation, whereas consciousness can only exist in a brain, which is organic in nature. Similar to the materialistic argument, this means that a robot will be made of artificial, inanimate, “dead” materials, unlike the human body which is made of live organic parts that through chemical and biological systems support independent thinking. This is impossible with non-living, inorganic things. Dennett argues that organic processes can be alternated by biochemical processes to enable a robot to do what an organic process in the brain can do, thus making alternative “biological systems” is possible. Thirdly, robots are artificial, and consciousness cannot be created, because it is more of inborn than it is manufactured. This translates to the sense that humans are made with both physical and beyond-physical properties which work together to create intelligence. This works in that the mind directs the body parts to respond to stimuli around them. On this issue of robots being artificial thus not conscious, Dennett says that if a person is broken up into all their constituent individual atoms, then it is possible to make a duplicate of that person by creating atoms with similar properties. The consciousness does not have to be inborn but rather acquired as the person or robots encounters experience, he adds. Fourth, robots can never posses as many systems as a human being has to support consciousness. This is because human beings are complex beings, owing to the reason that they have infinite parts that work together to complete a single task. Bringsjord states “we are composed of thousands of different kinds of cells, including thousands of different species of symbiont visitors… if all that complexity were needed for consciousness to exist, then the task of making a single conscious robot would dwarf the entire scientific and engineering resources” (Bringsjord, 2001). For instance, the human eyes have a lens, cornea, iris, eyelid, sensory nerves, and optical fiber, which connects to the brain, which in itself has infinite constituent parts. Dennett does not believe that lack of the billions of parts can cripple the ongoing project. He says that it is possible for a robot to work like a human, but only if all the trillions of circuits can be manually incorporated into it. With these parts in place, a robot will be similar to a human being, and be able to execute all the actions that a human can. To further support his argument, Dennett introduces the “Cog Project” in which scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are using humanoid robotic knowledge to give the cog, which is a robot, human-level intelligence. They use the concept that if a robot is created and is exposed to human interaction, then it can gain intelligence the same way that babies do. It responds to surrounding stimuli by using knowledge acquired from imitating humans, together with their corresponding responses to the stimuli. The aim of this project is to design a humanoid robot that can communicate with both humans and robots. It uses sensors and motors to replace mechanical and visual proprioceptions. In place of the organic processes, the cog robot uses complex materials and designs that work with artificial chemicals and organic forms. Bringsjord uses John Searle’s argument who is against computationalism. Searle’s attack is based on a common thought by philosophers that recognizes that the human brain is prone to deterioration with time, a condition that doctors can replace with silicon chips. Philosophers in addition have it in mind that the replacement of the brain continues until the whole brain is gone and in its place are only silicon chips remaining. These procedures can result in three scenarios… 1. The silicon fillings work magic in that they enable execution of the same mental and sensorimotor functions as the flesh and blood brain. 2. Continued refilling with the silicon chips means the brain’s area of conscious experience reduces gradually but does not affect one’s external behavior. Rather, it affects one’s conscious experience as a result of the shrinking. 3. The replacements might result in one getting paralyzed thus the abandonment by doctors and finally death. Searle extracts his argument from the second possibility, commonly referred to as the “zombie variation” which explains that the replacements result in the depletion of the middle relationship between the behavior patterns and the mind. In that scenario, the chips are unable to execute the brain’s mandate of producing conscious mental states. In short, the three scenarios tell us something about the brain; that itis responsible for all conscious (mental) phenomena, that there is a logical or conceptual relationship between external behavior and mental phenomenon. In short, a system can have behavior without consciousness and consciousness without behavior. Concisely, Searle describes a Dennett’s proposal of robots being able to challenge the human mind as an impossible task even in future. He refers to his “artificial people” as mere “machines with minds”, maintaining his ground that robots will always be machines no matter what extent of artificial intelligence is installed in them, they can never match human intelligence but will be “zombies”. Zombies have bodies like humans but they have no consciousness thus far inferior in comparison to us (Bringsjord, 2001). I agree with Bringsjord who through Searle’s concepts appears stronger than him in opposing the success in creating artificial people. His strongest point is that a mind is what differentiates between people in life, and that it uses much more than just pre-installed physical properties in achieving its intelligent nature. I find weaknesses in Dennett’s reasoning, mainly because his argument that is is possible to copy and create parts similar to humans is not at all possible to do so because for one, it is impossible to create parts with organic properties, and in addition, intelligence requires trillions and trillions of small coordinated parts to work in achieving it. Conclusion From this discusson, two rival philosophical sides take to a debate regarding the creation of artificial humans with human ability. Dennett supports the debate, arguing that if scientists can copy all the working units of the body, then they can create artificial people. Bringsjord is against the debate, stating that due to complexity of the human structure, it is impossible to create a robot with exact human ability. The debate is hard to conclude on as both sides present evidence sufficient in convincing one to their side, and it seems the only solution that might work is possibly materializing the claims. If a robot is made to be intelligent and similar to us, then that is the only solution that would put an end to the debate, but until then; it remains a controversial topic. References Bringsjord, S. (2001, August 27). The zombie Attack on the Computational Conception of Mind: Department of Philosophy, Psychology & Cognitive Science: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dennett, D. (1994, September 1-3). Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds.IIAS Symposium on Cognition, Computation and Consciousness. Read More