Our Posthuman Future: The Philosophical Implications

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Introduction

This essay is about the philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and it will delve deep into the question of the many philosophical implications of AI. In this paper, I will argue that a machine being able to think and the possibility of an emerging post human future due to the hypothetical invention of AI has philosophical implications for the future of humanity. The intersection of strong and weak AI with human consciousness is also explored through the examples of IBM’s AI systems such as Watson and Deep Blue. Overall, the aim of this essay is to examine the philosophical implications of the emerging post human future.

Before launching into the full-fledged discussion, it would be in the fitness of things to clarify the position taken in this paper. That is to do with the central requirement that unless we understand the mind and cognitive abilities of the brain better and in a conclusive manner, we must not rush into creating machine clones of ourselves. Just as the first cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep, evoked furious debate over the future of genetics and our trans-evolution, the issue of whether machines would ever think like humans is bound to be equally heated (Akman & Blackburn, 2000, 394).

This means that we should clarify our positions on the various themes that are discussed in this paper and it is hoped that the arguments made for and against machine intelligence here are useful pointers to the potential of a coming age of “trans-evolution”. Moreover, as we shall discuss later, even from a technological perspective, we are yet to advance to the stage when we can make machines as intelligent as humans. Note that this does not mean having a computing power and storage greater than the human brain bu...

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Kurzweil, R. (2012). The Singularity is near. New York: Bantam Books.

Mays, W. (1952). Can machines think? Philosophy, 27 (101), pp. 148--162.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (2014). Human champs of 'Jeopardy!' vs. Watson the IBM computer: a close match. [Online] Retrieved from: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/technology/human-champs-of-jeopardy-vs-watson-the-ibm-computer-a-close-match-284466/ [Accessed: 19 Mar 2014].

Searle, J. R. (1986). Minds, Brains and programs. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Steels, L. (1993). The artificial life roots of artificial intelligence. Artificial Life, 1 (1_2), pp. 75--110.

Turing, A. M. & Copeland, B. J. (2004). The essential Turing. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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