[lbo-talk] RE: AI

[joanna bujes]

"Even if Ted is
right that thinking and consciousness, whatever that
is, requires or presupposes some sort of unobservable
transcendental subject, why can't that be realized in
a computer? Is there something special about
biological systems taht they and only they can be
conscious? Or couldn't an AI, if it got smart enough,
wake up with all the puzzles about consciousness we
have? jks"

If a computer can do anything without a humanly-programmed set of instructions, we can start talking. However, a computer without a program is like a car without gasoline. It just sits there and does nothing. Another way of getting at this is to say that machine "Intelligence" starts at the point where a computer can come up with something that lies outside the permutations of its instruction set. Problem is, it can't. Some humans, on the other hand, can overcome their conditioning.

Joanna