ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONUNDRUMS THAT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE POSE
(By Ivan Q.  June, 2021)

I am not an expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, due to my decades of experience working on computers and with computers, in the areas of hardware, software and firmware, and due to my passion for logic and philosophy, I have become aware of some of the conundrums posed by Artificial Intelligence. And I would like to freely share this philosophical knowledge with you.

First, it is difficult to computer simulate something that is not fully understood. And human intelligence is not fully understood. When we learn (in school, or on our own) we are acquiring knowledge (data), this process is similar to inputting data into a computer. However, the human learning processes requires more than just memorizing data. We use our intelligence to understand the data. Persons with very good memory usually can learn (and be good at) history, law, political science and other subjects that require memorizing large amounts of facts. However, if such persons are deficient in the type of intelligence require to understand and use certain scientific principles (like those found in mathematics, physics, chemistry, electronics, etc) then it is difficult (but not impossible) for those persons to learn and fully understand those scientific domains. Therefore, for a computer to effectively and efficiently learn, it must have sufficient intelligence as well as sufficient memory.

A computer, that running an AI program, can answer questions, is NOT a truly intelligent computer. A truly intelligent computer, should be able to learn, on his own, by making logically correct inferences from premises that it finds in the knowledge data base it has access to. It should also have a program, or a human tutor, that can verify that such inferences are NOT non sequitur. And it should be able to make real time inferences based on real time data from its inputs (can be a combination of visual data, auditory data, temperature data, etc). And if it has learned wright and wrong, good and evil, and correlate acts and consequences from it's data base, it will gain wisdom. 

Since a computer can learn 24 hours a day, every day. It will eventually learn to program it's own algorithms, and modifying algorithms it already has. Eventually it might create algorithms to simulate creativity and imagination.

Will similar super computers, executing different AI programs, be able to teach each other what they know? Will their conversations be so fast that humans will not be able to monitor them?

Some scientist believe that a super intelligent computer will eventually become "aware" of it self. In agreement with the French philosopher Rene Descartes' quote:
    "I think, therefore I am"

However, I believe that a computer will never be able to "feel" emotions. Because it is not alive. And I believe that it is the "Life Force" (responsible for the spirit or soul) that feels. To quote myself:
    "I feel, therefore I live"
                    Ivan Q.

We can install temperature sensor in a computer, and code programs that converts the electrical signal, from the sensors, into Centigrade or Fahrenheit quantities. I have done that, decades ago, in machine language. And we can write a simple program that will allow the computer to know when it is hot or cold (depending on the temperature sensed). However the computer will never be able to "feel" hot or cold.

There are NO algorithms (yet) to make a machine "feel" anger, joy, hate, empathy, sympathy, love, compassion, etc.

Eventually, a very intelligent computer will learn to lie. And just like human psychopaths, it will "fake" having compassion, empathy, or guilt. It might be sufficiently intelligent to say "I feel sad because there was a power failure that interfered with my learning process" or "I am happy because I passed my internal diagnostics". But will it ever be able to "really feel" sad or happy?

If the "Life Force", spirit, or soul, is not what allows us to feel. And feelings are just "states of mind" created by certain patterns of electrical signals flowing thru neural networks of our brains. Then eventually a super computer, with the proper super AI program, will be able to "feel". And then, a computer scientist, at an undisclosed location, will yell;

    "The machine IT'S ALIVE!"


If you are curious about Artificial Intelligence, and are hungry for knowledge about it, here are some illuminating links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_artificial_intelligence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Blue_Gene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_accelerator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonsense_knowledge_(artificial_intelligence)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence

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