Will Abrahamson
11/30/17
Phil: 1153
Machines and Free Will
Thesis:
I believe that machines have free will. The definition of free will I am going to use for this paper comes from Thomas Hobbes. It basically states that; they’re being nothing preventing us from doing what we want to do . In the case of this definition, we are not the cause of free will, there is no obstacle in our way is. This view is called “compatiblism” according to the Stanford Enclyopedia of Philosophy and Hobbes is considered a “Classical Compatibilist” . This goes against the view that we are the cause of our free will. This topic came to me when I was watching a movie called Ex. Machina. The part of this movie that I am interested is the fact that the machine …show more content…
Another reason this topic interested me was hearing stories such as people being beaten at complex strategy games like Go, and the person the machine faced was one of the best players at the game . The machine also went on to play the champion of the game and was successful too . I have also heard of video games that are able to create infinite universes, which may not be relevant to this topic, but it shows A.I and machines are becoming more relevant and that is what interested me in choosing Machines for this paper. In this paper I will use other examples of machines that can do similar things, and have a similar function. Examples such as an A.I that existed on the Internet named Tay and will explain the relevance of these machines and how they can have free will according to this definition.
Argument:
If a machine has free will, then there will be no barriers from preventing it from what it wants to do. Nothing is preventing it from what it wants to do. So, machines have free will. The reason for this comes from the fact that they do not have barriers preventing them from doing what they want to do. Their lack of barriers comes …show more content…
In which he argues against “Strong AI” (which is the theory that the computer is a mind). The experiment essentially goes like this, a guy is in a room that cannot understand Chinese, but is able to communicate with a Chinese speaker through using Chinese letters and having a book that tells him how to organize the letters to form words and sentences and can communicate effectively with a Chinese speaker who is outside of the room by doing this . The conclusion he has is that the person is just following a program and doesn’t really understand the language and this applies to a computer too. If this is the case then a machine cannot have free will because that lack of barriers that I mentioned, in the beginning is only part of a program. This would mean that the machine would not have it by itself it is just programmed to have these lack of barriers. Similar to Searle’s experiment, the guy in the room does not understand the language he is just manipulating symbols and it seems like he can speak the language. It can be further said with this that the program is a barrier itself, because the machine (or A.I) cannot do anything beyond the program, so therefore it does not have free will according to Hobbes because it is constrained. To apply this to the examples I used in my argument section would be that the Go machine does not really understand the game it just can calculate options and then acts on them
11/30/17
Phil: 1153
Machines and Free Will
Thesis:
I believe that machines have free will. The definition of free will I am going to use for this paper comes from Thomas Hobbes. It basically states that; they’re being nothing preventing us from doing what we want to do . In the case of this definition, we are not the cause of free will, there is no obstacle in our way is. This view is called “compatiblism” according to the Stanford Enclyopedia of Philosophy and Hobbes is considered a “Classical Compatibilist” . This goes against the view that we are the cause of our free will. This topic came to me when I was watching a movie called Ex. Machina. The part of this movie that I am interested is the fact that the machine …show more content…
Another reason this topic interested me was hearing stories such as people being beaten at complex strategy games like Go, and the person the machine faced was one of the best players at the game . The machine also went on to play the champion of the game and was successful too . I have also heard of video games that are able to create infinite universes, which may not be relevant to this topic, but it shows A.I and machines are becoming more relevant and that is what interested me in choosing Machines for this paper. In this paper I will use other examples of machines that can do similar things, and have a similar function. Examples such as an A.I that existed on the Internet named Tay and will explain the relevance of these machines and how they can have free will according to this definition.
Argument:
If a machine has free will, then there will be no barriers from preventing it from what it wants to do. Nothing is preventing it from what it wants to do. So, machines have free will. The reason for this comes from the fact that they do not have barriers preventing them from doing what they want to do. Their lack of barriers comes …show more content…
In which he argues against “Strong AI” (which is the theory that the computer is a mind). The experiment essentially goes like this, a guy is in a room that cannot understand Chinese, but is able to communicate with a Chinese speaker through using Chinese letters and having a book that tells him how to organize the letters to form words and sentences and can communicate effectively with a Chinese speaker who is outside of the room by doing this . The conclusion he has is that the person is just following a program and doesn’t really understand the language and this applies to a computer too. If this is the case then a machine cannot have free will because that lack of barriers that I mentioned, in the beginning is only part of a program. This would mean that the machine would not have it by itself it is just programmed to have these lack of barriers. Similar to Searle’s experiment, the guy in the room does not understand the language he is just manipulating symbols and it seems like he can speak the language. It can be further said with this that the program is a barrier itself, because the machine (or A.I) cannot do anything beyond the program, so therefore it does not have free will according to Hobbes because it is constrained. To apply this to the examples I used in my argument section would be that the Go machine does not really understand the game it just can calculate options and then acts on them