It's the same sort of thinking that used to say "the African does not truly think or feel, he simply exhibits reflex responses that can give the appearance of thinking and feeling".
Or, perhaps, "the Computer does not truly think or feel, it simply follows numerical algorithms that can give the appearance of thinking and feeling"?
(Obviously I'm not attempting to compare the intellect of Africans and that of computers; just to make the point that it's really hard to describe what is going on inside someone or something else's mind, when we don't even have clear definitions for what it means to "think" or "feel".)
Sure, although the reason I raised it in the context of Africans is that not so long ago this was used as a justification for all sorts of horrors - any Explorer worth their salt would keep a stuffed pygmy as a coat rack - I mean, "it's" not really sentient, its family only gave the appearance of being distraught when you "culled" it. And, of course, slavery and all that begat.
Ota Benga is a nice (not so nice) case study in the impact of this sort of thinking.
> Turing describes a number of objections that people are inclined to raise to the possibility of AI. One, which he calls the "Heads in the Sand" objection, he characterises thus: "The consequences of machines thinking would be too dreadful. Let us hope and believe that they cannot do so." It is, he says, particularly prevalent among intellectual people, since they most value the power of thinking. Turing notes that this position needs no refuting: "Consolation would be more appropriate." Today the Heads in the Sand objection is alive and well.
My favourite answer is that the question of machines thinking -- and in this context, dolphins thinking -- is about as meaningful as the question of whether submarines swim: Not the same way as we do, but if they get the same result does the mechanism really matter?
I think machines would have to have awareness and experience before we can say they think like us.
We are extremely aware of our computers - every pixel it emanates from the screen, every bounce on the keyboard, the temperature, it's hum. With our awareness we build a model of the computer, we can anticipate and manipulate it's future states. The computer on the other hand, senses only touches on its keyboard, the power feeding to it from the power socket, the light entering its camera, the bits coming through on it's wifi. Sure, this information are enough to build some sort of model of the world, but it does not currently do that. Our computers do not marshal all of it's sensory experience into a coherent whole, and therefore remains in unawareness, cannot anticipate and cannot manipulate the world around it informed by its own experience, it acts and thinks like the detached tail of a lizard.
Nonetheless, I do think, one day, computers will think and be aware.
Or, perhaps, "the Computer does not truly think or feel, it simply follows numerical algorithms that can give the appearance of thinking and feeling"?
(Obviously I'm not attempting to compare the intellect of Africans and that of computers; just to make the point that it's really hard to describe what is going on inside someone or something else's mind, when we don't even have clear definitions for what it means to "think" or "feel".)