Can Artificial Intelligence have free will?

ZenMode said:
THAT is a great question that I don't believe anyone has an answer for. Is consciousness the result of physical processes in the brain or do physical processes in the brain permit visibility to consciousness.
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By your statements denying free will, there would be no consciousness.
 
ZenMode said:
Any animal can set a task and complete it. An animal, like a human, gets thirsty. Sets out on a task to get a drink, finds water and drinks.

Would you consider a warthog to have free will?
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Yes, a warthog in the wild has free will.

AI cannot set a task and complete it. AI is the product of per-programmed decision trees. In the simple terms you set, could the most sophisticated AI, such as AlphaGo (Google) craft a plan to supply itself with electricity to continue it's existence? The answer is "no." Without a decision matrix defining the possibility - even the most clever AI is not capable of contemplation.

Will Quantum computing eventually change this? Perhaps, but what quantum computing offers is faster processing of b-trees. AI is ultimately a computer program - a very sophisticated one, but still a program.
 
BidenPresident said:
By your statements denying free will, there would be no consciousness.
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Not at all. We have consciousness. We just don't have direct control over the contents of consciousness because there is no self that authors the contents of consciousness. Because of that, free will, as it is generally described, is not possible. If there is no self, then who/what is "making" choices?
 
BidenPresident said:
Yes, I think free will was invented by early Christians.

And I really don't care if I have agency or not. I still have to do stuff.
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Yes, but you live in an authoritarian dictatorship, Communist China.

Despite the best effort of your vassals, the democrats, America is still mostly free - even here in California.

I find your circular logic amusing. As you spew venom at the Christians you so bitterly hate, you hold yourself as a superior Communist not encumbered with the opiate of the masses. Yet without free will, you made no choice to hate Christians and are merely a product of programming. Your bigotry is not the result of rational analysis, but simply because you were indoctrinated to hate those who might threaten the Communist Party.
 
ZenMode said:
Not at all. We have consciousness. We just don't have direct control over the contents of consciousness because there is no self that authors the contents of consciousness. Because of that, free will, as it is generally described, is not possible. If there is no self, then who/what is "making" choices?
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What is the role of consciousness? By what you say, nothing.
 
ZenMode said:
Humans make decisions but, despite subjective experience, there's just no true choice in the decision. The decision made was always going to be the decision.
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That of course, is utter nonsense. Rehashed predetermination of the Calvinists.
 
BidenPresident said:
What is the role of consciousness? By what you say, nothing.
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You experience it every moment of every day. Consciousness is where the stream of thought exists. Identifying with the unique stream of consciousness is what we mistakenly identify as "I".
 
ZenMode said:
You experience it every moment of every day. Consciousness is where the stream of thought exists. Identifying with the unique stream of consciousness is what we mistakenly identify as "I".
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I don't see why you would call brain functions consciousness. Redundant.
 
BidenPresident said:
I don't see why you would call brain functions consciousness. Redundant.
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Brain function isn't equal to consciousness. Our brains to a LOT of things that we aren't consciously aware of... luckily. You don't experience your brain regulating heart rate or other bodily functions.
 
ZenMode said:
Brain function isn't equal to consciousness. Our brains to a LOT of things that we aren't consciously aware of... luckily. You don't experience your brain regulating heart rate or other bodily functions.
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Then I do not understand what the role of consciousness is.
 
ZenMode said:
Determinism is real. "We" have no real choices. Our decisions were always going to be what they were going to be.
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Again, utter nonsense. The human mind has a capacity for decision making that is unparalleled. The idea that god or some other force preordained that a person would set their keys on the counter instead of hanging them up, thus being late to leave the next morning as they searched for the keys, placing them in an intersection at the time a truck blew a red light, has been defeated for centuries.

Conscious choice is the basis of humanity. Those like BrandonPathtic seek to reduce humanity to mechanical to justify the devaluing of human life. The left has long held that human life has no value - that only the state and the party matter. People are mere cogs in the machine, replaceable and of no real value beyond the function they serve to the state.

What you claim is the opposite of reality. We are the sum of our choices. Everything we do is a choice, and impacts everything around us. We control our destiny by the choices we make.

Those like BP seek to reduce humans to nothing more than AI to justify their intended atrocities. Ending a billion lines of code isn't a moral crime. Reducing humanity to no more than this justifies the idea of slaughtering a billion people. Ultimately this is an attempt to argue that human life has no value.
 
ZenMode said:
In the other thread, I explained how an awareness of our lack of free will significantly changed my views and approach on important things, but I don't see any reason to rehash that here.
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Some philosophers call consciousness an epiphenomenon. I would not, but it is an argument that consciousness does not cause anything.
 
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