Arguments Against Strong AI

Introduction
The first argument against strong AI is that it is impossible for robots to feel emotions
The second argument against strong AI is that robots cannot experience consciousness.
The third argument against strong AI is that machines never understand the meaning of their processing
The fourth argument against strong AI is that machines cannot have free will.
The fifth argument against strong AI is that God created humans as intelligent persons


Introduction
I now turn to part 2 of my talk, arguments against strong AI, and their rebuttal. No doubt some of you have already been thinking "Yes, but...", and I hope to address some of your misgivings. I cannot hope to cover all the arguments against strong AI, and no doubt some of these will come up in questions and discussion later.

I want to consider five arguments against strong AI.

The first argument against strong AI is that it is impossible for robots to feel emotions
to feel pain, or to get excited about something. Some might argue that it will not be necessary for intelligent robots to feel emotions, for example in Star Trek, Vulcans like Mr. Spock survive OK being purely logical creatures. However, I believe it is likely that intelligent robots will need to feel emotions in order to function effectively. There has been quite a lot of research into emotion from an AI perspective, for example by Aaron Sloman's group at Birmingham. It is possible to build computational models of emotions, and I do not see any reason, in principle, why a machine should not feel emotions.

The second argument against strong AI is that robots cannot experience consciousness.
Consciousness has become a hot topic for research in the last five years, with scientists such as Francis Crick believing that it is the most important scientific question of our times. Whilst Roger Penrose believes that the brain needs to use special biological structures to support consciousness which exploit quantum mechanical effects, this is not a widespread view. Others such as Daniel Dennett in his book "Consciousness Explained" believe that we already have a good understanding of the nature of consciousness. I personally believe that there is still progress to be made in philosophy and cognitive science before we have a good understanding of consciousness, but I see no reason to believe that we will never understand it. Certainly it will be an important scientific milestone when we have a good theory of consciousness, but it will come.

The third argument against strong AI is that machines never understand the meaning of their processing
This is a view most strongly argued by John Searle, that machines do not understand semantics. However, this is a view widely contested in the literature, e.g. in the journal Brain and Behavioural Science. Furthermore, it shows a misunderstanding of the nature of semantics. In some sense even a simple computer understands semantics when it understands that the command "print" means that something is to be printed. Language understanding programs show much more complex levels of understanding of semantics.

The fourth argument against strong AI is that machines cannot have free will.
People argue that any man made mechanism is necessarily determined in its behaviour, and therefore it cannot make free choices. This view relies on a too simple view of what a mechanism is. We tend to think of things like clocks and engines as machines, but they are far simpler in their organisation than a computer. Even our experience of computers is too limited; the computers we encounter are fairly dumb and very rarely do they take the initiative when communicating with us. When was the last time your computer asked you about what you did last night, or suggested that it was time you did some work? But there is no limit to the complexity of computer programs, and Margaret Boden has convincingly argued that machines like humans will be able to deliberate about their choices. That a machine will be able to consider options A,B and C just as well as a human, and thus its choices are as free as human choice is.

The fifth argument against strong AI is that God created humans as intelligent persons,
and He made no other such beings. In this view, humans are unique among creation being made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we will always be different to any artefacts made by us. There are a number of responses to this argument. First of all a distinction needs to be made between humans and persons. Humans are the species homo sapiens on the planet earth; we might also consider other species as humans, e.g. homo erectus. A person is an autonomous agent who is capable of intelligent communication, for example, a human, a Martian, an angel in heaven, and I would argue, an intelligent robot. A number of religious writers in science fiction, for example C.S. Lewis and James Bligh SJ, have suggested that there may be intelligent life forms on other planets - persons in my terminology - and further that these persons will have a religious dimension to their lives. Thus it can be argued that the gospel should be preached on Mars, and throughout the universe. Thus, by considering aliens we can escape the anthropocentric view of persons as only being homo sapiens. Just as when a child is brought up we want it to come to know God, the same argument applies to robots. Why should God not desire the salvation of robots?

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