When we come to artificial intelligence and
the possibility of their becoming conscious
we reach a profound philosophical difficulty.
I am a philosophical naturalist.
I am committed to the view that there’s
nothing in our brains that violates the laws
of physics, there’s nothing that could not
in principle be reproduced in technology.
It hasn’t been done yet, we’re probably
quite a long way away from it, but I see no
reason why in the future we shouldn’t reach
the point where a human made robot is capable
of consciousness and of feeling pain.
We can feel pain, why shouldn’t they?
And this is profoundly disturbing because
it kind of goes against the grain to think
that a machine made of metal and silicon chips
could feel pain, but I don’t see why they
would not.
And so this moral consideration of how to
treat artificially intelligent robots will
arise in the future, and it’s a problem
which philosophers and moral philosophers
are already talking about.
Once again, I’m committed to the view that
this is possible.
I’m committed to the view that anything
that a human brain can do can be replicated
in silicon.
And so I’m sympathetic to the misgivings
that have been expressed by highly respected
figures like Elon Musk and Steven Hawking
that we ought to be worried that on the precautionary
principle we should worry about a takeover
perhaps even by robots by our own creation,
especially if they reproduce themselves and
potentially even evolve by reproduction and
don’t need us anymore.
This is a science-fiction speculation at the
moment, but I think philosophically I’m
committed to the view that it is possible,
and like any major advance we need to apply
the precautionary principle and ask ourselves
what the consequences might be.
It could be said that the sum of not human
happiness but the sum of sentient-being happiness
might be improved, they might make a better
job do a better job of running the world than
we are, certainly that we are at present,
and so perhaps it might not be a bad thing
if we went extinct.
And our civilization, the memory of Shakespeare
and Beethoven and Michelangelo persisted in
silicon rather than in brains and our form
of life.
And one could foresee a future time when silicon
beings look back on a dawn age when the earth
was peopled by soft squishy watery organic
beings and who knows that might be better,
but we’re really in the science fiction
territory now.
