final paper

People have had this fascination with technology long before there were any actual texts to write down our history. While the technology that humans had a few thousand years ago were not as advanced as what we have today, they were still toying with the idea of creating machines that would have the capability to make the similar, rational decisions that we do. It is only until the late 19th or early 20th century that the advances in technology have allowed people to put more emphasis on the question of when, because it is only a matter of time, humanoid artificial intelligence will outwardly simulate human emotions closely enough that we have to wonder if they deserve or be accorded the moral status of people.

As we are entering further into the technological age, it is becoming less of a far fetch idea and more of a possibility that artificial intelligence will reach the same capacity for thought that we have. Numerous scientists and scholars have disputed over whether or not when artificial intelligence gets to the point where their thought process is on par with a person, that they will be afforded the same rights that any other human receives in society. Even though no artificial intelligence have passed the Turing test, one scholar by the name of William Lycan seems to think so.

In his writings, “Robots and Minds,” Lycan discusses that if a computer driven robot outwardly simulates human behavior, then the artificial intelligence truly has a mind that can process information and make its own decisions. (And if it can make its own decisions, then it should also be morally responsible for their own actions.) Lycan even gave two examples in his writings, Harry and Henrietta, where the two contrasting scenarios begged the ques...

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...t whatever it may be. When this idea is combined with the view that robots could possess a mind, it leads to Lycan’s conlusion on this topic. The reason for this is because a robot is not merely a ‘puppet.’ There may be people that guide the robot to complete certain actions, but no one can know for certain, not even the creator of the robot, as to what it will do 100% of the time. Like Lycan had said at the top of page 362, “even an ordinary computer, let alone a fabulously sophisticated machine like Harry, is in a way unpredictable” (Reason). You might think that you know what the robot will do, but multiple variables could come into play where the robot will stray from the path.

Many people tend to not think of computers in this way. By doing so, it is inferring that they make free choices and do not complete actions simply because it is in their programming.