Artificail Inteligence and Human Rights

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Some people can’t reason well or do much else, through disability or some other reason, but still have rights because they’re people and have a soul, created by God.

People here are:

Assuming that people have rights.
Coming up with a list of human characteristics.
Matching those characteristics with non-humans to see if those non-humans should have the rights of humans.

I think the above procedure is useless. I think the criteria is arbitrary to some extent (which one is more important? How did you decide?). The only one that matters is the soul, God’s creation of it, and His command to respect those two facts.
 
Linux said:
Why is it particularly irrational or ridiculous that an electronic object has a soul as opposed to a biological object? That in itself is an arbitrary distinction for which you have not provided good reasons. Its not a question of biological souls and electronic souls but rather its a mater of whether or not a thing has a soul; and theists generally posit the existence of a soul in reference to the existence of rational or sentient animals such as human-beings. There is nothing stopping this description from being broadened to include other sentient beings that are not animals in the biological sense of the word.
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Simply because it was postulated that the “soul” - a very loosely undefined concept - is what differentiates the “living” and the inanimate entities. I would expect that you are somewhat familiar with the concepts advocated by the non-materialists… alas it does not happen.
Linux said:
I really don’t see why the existence of an electronic sentience would be a disproof to the existence of a soul?
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One of these days it would be so much fun to have a conversation with someone who actually reads what I am posting. I already said that a true “AI” would not “disprove” the concept of a soul, it would merely make the idea superfluous.
Linux said:
You certainly have not provided any philosophical or metaphysical evidence for this belief, and neither have you shown that you have a scientifically testable hypothesis.
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You gotta be kidding me. It is YOU, who posits the “soul-hypothesis”, and then you expect ME to scientifically refute it?
 
zro_x said:
Tyrion, if Artificial intelligince is created such that it is indistinguishable from a human being, it would indeed render the human soul superfluous, at least in the way many christians think of it. It is still possible that humans and the AI would have a couple of fundamental differences. For example, the behavior of the AI might be predictable while that of the human isn’t, which would leave room for free will.
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Why do you think that the AI would be predictable? If the AI’s behavior is indistinguishable from the behavior of a human, and since humans are unpredictable, then it logically follows that the AI is also unpredictable.
zro_x said:
This is why I have a very limited view on how the soul functions. I think it is simply the part of us that is responsible for consciousness and free will, and preserving our memories after we die. If the soul is looked at as only having these functions, then it still has some purpose without being completely superfluous.
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In such a case it would be still relevant… but how are you going to justify such a view?
 
Tyrion said:
Simply because it was postulated that the “soul” - a very loosely undefined concept
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In other words you don’t know what a soul is, and yet you choose to make negative claims about it.

Pull the other one why don’t you.
One of these days it would be so much fun to have a conversation with someone who actually reads what I am posting. I already said that a true “AI” would not “disprove” the concept of a soul, it would merely make the idea superfluous.
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Why would it make it superfluous when it was never claimed to be a scientific hypothesis in the first place. And why does something have to be a scientific theory in order for it to be known as true?

You really don’t understand what you are talking about. You don’t know how science operates let alone what metaphysics is.
 
If all our mental activity were caused by factors beyond our control “our” conclusions wouldn’t be ours at all. We would be biological machines programmed by events which lack insight and understanding. Do you regard a computer as rational or responsible for its activity?
 
I hardly can understand what you mean.
“beyond our control” - what do you mean? Memories, experience, knowledge, moral principles - our thoughts - are they beyond our control?
Anyway they are physical causes, as I said before. Therefore all our beaviour has physical causes. It doesn’t make our conclusions not ours.
 
kotlomoy said:
I hardly can understand what you mean.
“beyond our control” - what do you mean? Memories, experience, knowledge, moral principles - our thoughts - are they beyond our control?
Anyway they are physical causes, as I said before. Therefore all our beaviour has physical causes. It doesn’t make our conclusions not ours.
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If all our behaviour is caused by physical events we are biological computers who make decisions and reach conclusions according to the way we have been programmed. “our” bodies just happen to be links in the chain of events.
 
Biological computers? I think one can say that way. Very complex self-organized neural networks.
 
Tyrion said:
Why do you think that the AI would be predictable? If the AI’s behavior is indistinguishable from the behavior of a human, and since humans are unpredictable, then it logically follows that the AI is also unpredictable.
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I meant that the behavior of the AI is indistinguishable from humans. Whether the behavior of the AI is predictable or unpredictable has no bearing on how similar the behaviors are. but either way, The behavior of humans would still be unpredictable, which leaves room for free will.
In such a case it would be still relevant… but how are you going to justify such a view?
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Devine revelation. I believe God exists because of other evidence/proofs, and if God exists then devine revelation is a valid means of gaining knowledge. I certainly couldn’t justify it scientifically, at least not with today’s knowledge of neuroscience.
 
zro_x said:
Devine revelation. I believe God exists because of other evidence/proofs, and if God exists then devine revelation is a valid means of gaining knowledge. I certainly couldn’t justify it scientifically, at least not with today’s knowledge of neuroscience.
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Why would evidence of a God validate what people claim to be divine revelations?
 
tonyrey said:
If all our behaviour has physical causes we cannot choose what to think or be responsible for anything!
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And yet, if AI behavior is successfully made to be indistinguishable from human behavior, it would show that all human behavior can be explained by physical events. There would be no empirical need for a soul as most christians think of it.
 
zro_x said:
Why would people believe in divine revelation if there is no reason to believe in a God?
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They wouldn’t. However even if there was certain evidence for the existence of a God, the best that you can argue is that people should take religion more seriously. It would not by itself be a validation of divine revelation.
 
kotlomoy said:
Biological computers? I think one can say that way. Very complex self-organized neural networks.
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There is no evidence whatsoever that purposeful self-organization occurs spontaneously, accidentally or from physical necessity. It takes a mind to transform matter even into machines, let alone men!
 
Linux said:
They wouldn’t. However even if there was certain evidence for the existence of a God, the best that you can argue is that people should take religion more seriously. It would not by itself be a validation of divine revelation.
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All right then, If God exists and catholicism is the best way to know, love, and serve that God, then divine revelation is valid.
 
zro_x said:
And yet, if AI behavior is successfully made to be indistinguishable from human behavior, it would show that all human behavior can be explained by physical events. There would be no empirical need for a soul as most christians think of it.
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Our inability to distinguish human artefacts from persons does not necessarily imply there is no difference. The artefacts presuppose the existence of intelligence.

Moreover a negative statement is not a sound basis for a positive conclusion unless it is supported by further evidence…
 
tonyrey said:
There is no evidence whatsoever that purposeful self-organization occurs spontaneously, accidentally or from physical necessity. It takes a mind to transform matter even into machines, let alone men!
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No evidence? Do you want to talk about evolution?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
“The evolution usually starts from a population of randomly generated individuals and happens in generations.” So, at the beginning you have chaos. But generation after generation self-organization occurs.
As example, pile of details can self-organize to clock:
youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
You can find hundreds similar videos on Youtube. Search for “evolved virtual creatures”, for example.
Enough evidence?
 
tonyrey said:
Our inability to distinguish human artefacts from persons does not necessarily imply there is no difference. The artefacts presuppose the existence of intelligence.
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This is true, but you seem to be saying that entirely physical events can be responsible for human behavior, but only if the physical events are designed (such as in an artificial intelligence). Is this your position?
Moreover a negative statement is not a sound basis for a positive conclusion unless it is supported by further evidence…
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Also true, but you’ll notice I never made the claim that the existence of AI indistinguishable from humans would prove conclusively that souls do not exist, only that there would be no empirical need for a soul.
 
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