I use the term conscious beings, because the term conscious machines has materialistic connotations that I do not share, while artificial intelligence has been burned and abused by generalist media.
Before trying to answer this question, I
want to make a few previous clarifications:
- We are now capable of building conscious beings: our
children. Four billion years of evolution have led to the appearance of a type
of beings (us) endowed with self-awareness and capable of reproducing. This
was a natural process, which
we have not designed ourselves, but has been given to us since before we
existed. However, when someone poses the question in the title of this post,
it is usually interpreted thus: will we be able to build artificial conscious beings, by means
other than natural, devised and developed exclusively by ourselves?
- The current answer to this question is an emphatic NO. We
don’t have the technology, and it will take a long time (if ever) before
we are able to build conscious beings. The techniques we are using now to
build “intelligent” machines (computers or robots) just execute
pre-programmed algorithms, developed by human beings, which act exactly as
they have been programmed. In those cases, the intelligence is not in the
machine, but in the mind of the programmer.
- Building self-conscious machines would require a total change
in the scientific-technological paradigm. From a
scientific point of view, we have no idea what consciousness may be, much
less how to generate it (except through natural processes).
And from a technological point of view, minor adjustments won’t be enough.
Not even quantum computing, whenever it will be feasible and practical,
will succeed in changing the situation in this regard. I have explained in
another
post that quantum computing will let us solve more quickly some of the
same problems that we can already solve with classical computing, but it won’t
be able to solve new problems, completely out of our reach today. At this
time, a future change in the scientific-technological paradigm is totally unpredictable,
so any forecast in this regard is not science,
but science fiction.
So, let's move on to science fiction. I'm
going to consider two different types:
•
Fictional science popularization: On
October 9 1988, the major Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia published an
article of mine with the following title: Will
machines ever think? I mention it so it will be seen that I have
been thinking about this problem for many years, not just novelizing about it.
This article ends with the following words:
From my point of view, we should not be frightened by the
possibility that man will one day manufacture artificial intelligent beings.
After all, for millions of years we have been making new human beings. The
Catholic Church asserts that we just build their body, and that God infuses
each of these new beings with an immortal soul at the moment of conception.
What prevents, then, that if some day we make a really intelligent machine, God
could also infuse it with a soul? But this speculation, fortunately, is still
very far from being feasible, if it is at all possible.
•
Science fiction novels: I
have written two, dealing with this question, and in both I assumed that the
goal had already been achieved, either in the form of computer simulations or as
intelligent robots. In the last chapter of one of my novels the following two
paragraphs appear:
Natural, artificial... what’s the difference between these two
concepts? You use them as though they were opposites, but they are not. Man is part
of Nature. When he builds something, he applies the laws of the universe, so
everything he does is part of Nature. Artificial is an incomplete concept. The
term can be useful; it is applied to things man has manufactured, but that’s
not the opposite of natural. Everything that happens in the universe as a
consequence of the interplay of natural causes is natural. Man is one of those
causes.
Living beings had to evolve for billions of years before
intelligent, self-conscious beings appeared. We believers think that, when that
happened, God granted them immortality. In the same way, when men tried to
build artificial intelligence, the first attempts fell short, but as soon as
they managed to manufacture self-aware beings like you and me, I do believe
that God granted us immortality. Why would He deny it to us, if He grants it to
human beings?
My conclusion: I
don't think artificial intelligence (or the fabrication of artificial conscious
beings) is about to take place. I certainly don't see it in the 21st century.
But if it ever comes, I don't think that would be a problem for the Christian
worldview.
Thematic Thread about Natural and Artificial Intelligence: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
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