Robot Consciousness? Class Discussion #3 pg. 122

Humans seem rather obsessed with the concept of machines and robots possessing the intelligence to match our own. There have been countless movies portraying this idea and there are bound to be countless more as long as they are not walking among us in reality. Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Bicentennial man are just a few of these movies. Robots fascinate us for many reasons; they could take over, they could help us, they could be smarter than us, they seem human in many ways. But they are not human. They may have consciouness but they lack morals, common sense, street smarts, and emotions. They do not have a real brain. They were created by humans who are extremely fallible. And yet researchers like Igor Aleksander and Marvin Minsky continue to try and develop intelligent machines.

Minksy believes that machines will someday surpass humans in consciousness. “A computer can be programmed to keep a record of all its internal states and then to trace back through these. For a human to do the same would require the ability to go back through brain states to find the point where there was a particular response to certain stimuli” (Davidson 120). But Minsky adds that he does not mean that machines will be more intelligent than humans, only that they could be much more conscious (Davidson 120). Machines could have a vast collection of information and facts that makes them intelligent. Facts do not make up for lack of experience though. A machine could know the exact physics and engineering of a stove top but with out experience it would not know that touching the stove would result in a severe burn. Consciousness does not equate to common sense or knowing what to do with consciousness.

It seems that manufacturing common sense in a machine is difficult. It is hard to imagine a machine ever being truly as smart in all the ways that humans are since they are created by humans. They lack that extra something, that organic and earth bound quality that humans are. They are all steel and plastic parts while humans are flesh and blood. According to Minsky “Consciousness is not the issue in the quest for intelligent machines: the need is to endow them with common sense” (Davidson 121). Apparantly simple tasks to humans are nearly impossible to robots because of the everyday knowledge that is involved. Something as menial as cleaning a glass would require the robots knowledge of gravity to the breakableness of glass (Davidson 121).

Intelligent machines seem like something that will always stay in the distant future. One day they may walk among humans but will they truly possess human qualities? Some parts of the human brain are still a mystery to humans. It seems impossible to duplicate the many facets and functions of a human brain for a machine.