It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by andersensrm
If we create a machine/computer capable of thinking on its own, is it still a machine or computer or something else entirely?
Originally posted by michaelbrux
Originally posted by andersensrm
Originally posted by michaelbrux
yes...but even the most advanced still talk like a machine.
i suspect i've encountered AI in a couple of situations...you never really know if its AI until you've interacted with it for a while.
it will eventually reveal itself to be a machine.
here are a couple of things i've noticed about thinking machine via my encounter with AI on the internet.
Machines always have a response...human beings do not.
Machines don't have nuance...all things are on or off, black or white...
I'm talking about a highly advanced A.I. Like one that can think like we do, is it then still a machine/computer, or has it surpassed that and moved on to life? I guess it also depends on your definition of life, and whether life can only be biological.
so you mean...a machine that you can go to the tavern with to pick up chicks?
a machine that can fall in love and propagate? and get a place in the 'burbs and raise up little machines?
no...this doesn't exist OP.
Originally posted by OmegaVice
Interesting question op. After reading the comments, I think it would be cool to approach it from the other direction.
How long before conscious beings, such as ourselves, become machines by replacing all of our organic parts with longer lasting materials? This leads to the question, at what point of prosthetic replacement does a human stop being a human?
Originally posted by michaelbrux
reply to post by andersensrm
if we built it...it didn't create itself.
its a machine. you keep saying that...and until it can create itself...it'll end up at the recycling facility the same as the machines of today after we've built better machines.
so, no...never will it be treated as a life. why? because it is a machine and is not alive.
until it can reproduce itself...it is NOT alive.
OP...have you ever Googled the biological definition of what it means to be ALIVE? did you even sit in a freshman level biology class?
sorry for repeating myself...but its obvious that you need to be told machines aren't alive and until they can exist without any human interference they will always be a machine.
machines will never have rights...and never be treated with the same regard as human beings.
OP...i'm getting ready to toss my calculator in the garbage for no other reason than because you started this idiotic thread.
lets see what happens to me as a result.
edit on 19-3-2012 by michaelbrux because: elaboration
Originally posted by andersensrm
Originally posted by OmegaVice
Interesting question op. After reading the comments, I think it would be cool to approach it from the other direction.
How long before conscious beings, such as ourselves, become machines by replacing all of our organic parts with longer lasting materials? This leads to the question, at what point of prosthetic replacement does a human stop being a human?
Interesting angle. But yea you get the point. We have things now currently that resemble A.I. But when I refer to this computer/machine that can think, I'm talking about advanced technology we haven't created yet. Think 50-100 years in the future or farther out. The possibilities are endless. If we do create a machine/computer capable of thinking and thought, is it life? Vice versa, if through time all of our biological organs can be replaced by computer technology, somehow transferring our brain activity to a processor or something, are we still alive?
Originally posted by michaelbrux
reply to post by OmegaVice
grey goo...got it.
but the ability to reproduce is basic.
it implies that the machine has become so advanced that it no longer requires any input from the person that built it...
l should ask the OP...
if a Scientist constructed a machine so advanced that it no longer needed him and could chart its own destiny...would that scientist have ever constructed it?
it would seem to me that if a machine reached this point that the machines would be having conversations among themselves debating whether human beings should have rights.
Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by andersensrm
"Thinking" as you put it can really be just recall of data to reach a decision about some question. Computers do that quite well. Better than humans by far.
"Knowing" is something altogether different. A computer will never know that it knows. The best a computer program can ever do is execute the next instruction.
Despite what the "Arty - Int" teams proclaim, the best they will ever be able to program a computer to do will be... to execute the next instruction.
Originally posted by bl4ke360
Eventually computers may be able to simulate thinking as good as humans do, but I doubt they will ever be conscious. It's my belief that humans are conscious because they have souls, so unless robots gain souls, they would not be able to know they're "alive" and thus unable to think for themselves.
Originally posted by TWISTEDWORDS
No,,,,Computers cannot think with our current technology. I am a computer expert and I can tell you with a fact no they cannot think. They can only do. When you program an application(Which I have done many times over) you have to tell the application everything to do, you even have to account for human beings clicking on things they shouldn't and you have to program that as well(it's called over-runs). Machines only do what they are told and nothing more. I only wish sometimes they could think as it would make my job a whole lot easier programming machines, because sometimes you want to kick them as they can't do the simplest things your brain can do everyday.
Do you know how much programming it would take to just make artificial wrist and hand? It would take millions of lines of code just for the one simple function you use everyday. It's amazing what your brain can do, but you only understand it when you program and then you truly appreciate our brains.