What would be the religious consequences of true Artificial Inteligence?I?

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What would be the religious consequences of true Artificial Intelligence?

How would the Catholic Church respond to this phenomenon?
 
Please define “true artificial intelligence.” Would the computer / software just be smarter? Self-aware? Sentient? Please explain.
 
IWantGod said:
What would be the religious consequences of true Artificial Intelligence?

How would the Catholic Church respond to this phenomenon?
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Artificial will always be artificial. Until scientists become God they will not create a human being. Given that, there will be no need for the Church to respond.
 
davidv said:
Artificial will also be artificial. Until scientists become God they will not create a human being. Given that, there will be no need for the Church to respond.
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So it would not actually be an issue as such?

How would they be treated?
 
First, I don’t think it’s possible, because only God can create a soul (which self-awareness implies).

That said, supposing for a moment that God elected to design a soul specially for a man-made machine body (also rather dubious), and infuse that soul into the body, the rational being that resulted would obtain certain rights and responsibilities in proportion to its intelligence and ability to make intelligent and moral decisions.

But how would *we *know if the being had a soul or not?
 
None of those mentioned attributes can be measured directly. A good actor can make you believe that he is sad or happy, even when he is just playacting. A true AI system could “fool” you so that you would accept it as a human. Not just the intelligence, but also the “feelings”.

The religious consequences would be very significant. It will be the first direct evidence against the assumption of a “soul”. Also “artificial” is not a synonym for “inferior”. All sorts of “artificial” gadgets far surpass the “natural” ones.

I, for one, can hardly wait. 🙂
 
Ad_Orientem said:
First, I don’t think it’s possible, because only God can create a soul (which self-awareness implies).

That said, supposing for a moment that God elected to design a soul specially for a man-made machine body (also rather dubious), and infuse that soul into the body, the rational being that resulted would obtain certain rights and responsibilities in proportion to its intelligence and ability to make intelligent and moral decisions.

But how would *we *know if the being had a soul or not?
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How would we know indeed. There is this thing called the Turing test.
 
Solmyr said:
None of those mentioned attributes can be measured directly. A good actor can make you believe that he is sad or happy, even when he is just playacting. A true AI system could “fool” you so that you would accept it as a human. Not just the intelligence, but also the “feelings”.

The religious consequences would be very significant. It will be the first direct evidence against the assumption of a “soul”. Also “artificial” is not a synonym for “inferior”. All sorts of “artificial” gadgets far surpass the “natural” ones.

I, for one, can hardly wait. 🙂
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But would it really mean that there is no soul? I’m not sure that would be necessarily correct. I mean, we wouldn’t actually be “creating intelligence”. We would simply be discovering the physical patterns through which sentience becomes actual. The emergence of sentience would still be a mystery.
 
According to computer scientists, AI is just around the corner (5 - 20 years)

I don’t think true AI is possible. At least not with the current computer architecture. Computers that work in a radically different way from our current ones would have to be invented. Our brains don’t work anything like computers.

But let’s assume that we do create a true AI. Religion will explain this very easily. We are created in the image of God. One of the things God does is create. We are just doing the same thing.
 
IWantGod said:
How would we know indeed. There is this thing called the Turing test.
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Exactly. 🙂
IWantGod said:
But would it really mean that there is no soul?
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No, of course not. Just like the performances of stage magicians do not disprove the existence of the paranormal phenomena. However, it would name the hypothesis of the “soul” superfluous or unnecessary. Don’t forget that it is not possible to “prove” a universal negative (except in axiomatic systems).
IWantGod said:
I mean, we wouldn’t actually be “creating intelligence”. We would simply be discovering the physical patterns through which sentience becomes actual. The emergence of sentience would still be a mystery.
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The actual process of emergence is not important. We can move much faster than the speed we can achieve by moving our legs - using artificial means. Just because something is artificial it is not necessarily inferior.
 
Solmyr said:
Exactly. 🙂

No, of course not. Just like the performances of stage magicians do not disprove the existence of the paranormal phenomena. However, it would name the hypothesis of the “soul” superfluous or unnecessary. Don’t forget that it is not possible to “prove” a universal negative (except in axiomatic systems).
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The existence of the soul is not a scientific hypothesis in the first place.
The actual process of emergence is not important. We can move much faster than the speed we can achieve by moving our legs - using artificial means. Just because something is artificial it is not necessarily inferior.
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That depends on the goal of your enquiry.
 
None.

A machine, even though humanoid, would still be a machine and contain only the things programmed into it. Nothing more. It has no goals or feelings or desires unless programmed in, and they would all be artificial.

It would be a thing.

Ed
 
The artificial intelligence may be programmed to be atheistic.
 
IWantGod said:
So it would not actually be an issue as such?

How would they be treated?
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I’d imagine quite well indeed, as they would represent the utmost high-end in technology.

If you mean “given human rights,” well then the issue arises of them not being human.

ICXC NIKA
 
If a machine can manifest true artificial intelligence, then it must be able to think for itself and move beyond its programming. At that point, while not technically “human”, it would become a life form and should be afforded a certain degree of legal status. Of course, ability to think for oneself is relative and that would affect the level of legal status. For instance, a dog has some ability to think for itself, certainly more than a toaster has, but less than a human does. This is at the end of the day a question for the lawyers.
The artificial intelligence may be programmed to be atheistic.
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If if is constrained by programming it can not break to believe in certain values, it is not true artificial intelligence. And with that in mind, maybe its time for the Vatican to come up with a document on “Pastoral Care of Artificial Life Forms”. After all, baptism is meant to give someone new life, not to destroy it. 😉

But hey, if this does come to fruition, that’s the vocation crisis over. Each parish can have as many artificial priests as they want! "Don’t you just love Father 5478464, he’s so traditional! 😃
 
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