人工智能、生命和心智

As artificial intelligence becomes ever more capable, there is increasing talk of the possibility that it will eventually develop consciousness and sentience – perhaps even self-consciousness, as in movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some, like former Google engineer Blake Lemoine, have actually suggested that such a momentous development has already occurred (in the form of Google’s LaMDA chatbot). Is there good reason to take such claims seriously? And even if they are still premature, can AI systems achieve consciousness at least in principle? If so, what conditions should they meet? This course will invite students to seek answers to those fascinating questions, by critically examining a number of classic papers (going all the way back to AI pioneer Alan Turing) as well as more recent work in the philosophy of consciousness & AI. After clarifying the key notions of AI, mind, and consciousness, we will debate the plausibility of computationalism, the view that thought and consciousness can be reduced to computation of the “right” kind. We will discuss what an adequate test of AI mentality and consciousness would involve, and what ethical implications would follow from an AI system passing such a test. Finally, we will ask whether AI systems could ever qualify as a new form of life, leading to the related question whether, as some hope, humans can eventually merge with AI and continue their life in digital form after their biological death, via “mind uploading”.

basic training in Philosophy, English language skills

Readings & lecture slides (+, if students request & consent to it, recordings of each session) will be posted on the course page on the E3 platform. Google Meet will be used if the course needs to be held in hybrid mode.

The assessment scheme for this course will consist of three parts: a. Attendance & participation in discussion according to stated expectations (16%), oral presentations on the draft of each paper (18%) (Total = 34% of overall grade) b. First paper: Students will write an essay (3,000-4,000 words long, in English) on any topic discussed between weeks 2 and 8. (33% of overall grade) c. Second paper: Students will write an essay (3,000-4,000 words long, in English) on a different topic from the mid-term paper. (33% of overall grade)

Required readings: • Bedau, M. A. "Artificial Life". In: Frankish, K. & Ramsey, W. M. (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 296-315. • Chalmers, D. J. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 (selected chapters). • Chalmers, D. J. "The Singularity: a Philosophical Analysis". In: Schneider, S. (ed.). Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley, 2016, pp. 171-224. • Fallon, F. Integrated Information Theory, Searle, & the Arbitrariness Question. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (2020), pp. 629-645. • Mørch, H. H. "The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness". Philosophy Now 121 (2017). URL = https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/The_Integrated_Information_Theory_of_Consciousness. • Koch, C. & Tononi, G. "Can Machines Be Conscious?" IEEE Spectrum, June 2008, pp. 55-59. • Piccinini, G. "Computationalism in the Philosophy of Mind". Philosophy Compass 4:3 (2009), pp. 515-532. • Schneider, S. Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. • Searle, J. R. "Minds, Brains, and Programs", Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3:3 (1980), pp. 417–424. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00005756. • Searle, J. R. "Can Information Theory Explain Consciousness?" The New York Review of Books, January 10, 2013. • Turing, A. M. "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Mind 59 (1950), pp.433-60. • Turner, C. & Schneider, S. "Could You Merge with AI? Reflections on the Singularity and Radical Brain Enhancement”. In: Dubber, M. D., Pasquale, F., & Das, S. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 307-324. Recommended readings: • Bedau, M. A. "Artificial Life". In: Floridi, L. (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information. Malden, MA: Blackwell (2004), pp. 197-211. • Boden, M. A. "Escaping From The Chinese Room". In Heil, J. (ed.), Computer Models of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 253-266. • Carter, M. Minds and Computers: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. • Chalmers, D. J. Consciousness and the Philosophers: an Exchange. The New York Review of Books, May 15, 1997 (response to Searle's review of The Conscious Mind; also features Searle's response to Chalmers's response). • Chalmers, D. J. "Could a Large Language Model Be Conscious?" arXiv Preprint 2303.07103, 2023. URL = https://philpapers.org/archive/CHACAL-3.pdf [accessed 21/05/2023]. • Corabi, J. & Schneider, S. "If You Upload, Will You Survive?". In: Blackford, R. & Broderick, D. (eds.), Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds. Malden, MA: Wiley, 2014, pp. 131-145.• Dennett, D. Consciousness Explained. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1991. • Dennett, D. From Bacteria to Bach and Back: the Evolution of Minds. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2017.• Harnad, S. Minds, Machines, and Searle. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 1:1 (1989), pp. 5-25. • Kurzweil, R. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking, 2005. • Oppy, G. "The Turing Test". In: Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition). URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/ [accessed 13/02/2022]. • Pigliucci, M. "Mind Uploading: a Philosophical Counter-Analysis". In: Blackford & Broderick (eds.), Intelligence Unbound, pp. 119-130.• Putnam, H. Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. • Searle, J. R. "Is the Brain's Mind a Computer Program?". Scientific American 262:1 (1990), pp. 25-31. • Searle, J. R. "The Chinese Room Argument". In Nadel, L. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. John Wiley & Sons, 2006. • Searle, J. R. Consciousness & the Philosophers. The New York Review of Books, March 6, 1997. • Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M., & Koch, C. “Integrated Information Theory: From Consciousness to its Physical Substrate”. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17:7 (2016), pp. 450-461.

地點

Office 315, Zhi Xing Bldg

時間

By appointment

聯絡方式

alexerler@nycu.edu.tw