[SunTzuWu]

But AI, I don't buy it. Just because you link up an astonishing amount of processing power does not mean it's going to eventually become self-aware. Some very smart people seem to think that's how it works, as if once there's enough power, it just happens. Maybe if you're an atheist, you think it does.

If we succeed in creating an AI, will that change your views on religion or make you an atheist? (I'm not trying to trap you or make fun of you. I am genuinely curious.)

[NoStaplesPlease]

Ultimately I don't know how you test for true self-awareness compared simply to well-mimicked self-awareness. A very complex computer could very persuasively imitate human intelligence, sure. But actually think for itself? I believe this would have to be an illusion.

Regardless of how intelligence begins -- whether spiritual or physical -- it seems to me there must be a spark, a jump-start, a something-else beyond computing ability. We're not the sum of our brain's computing power. There's something mysterious going on in there, and until we can describe that mysteriousness, we're not going to be able to create it in machines.

I very much doubt it will happen accidentally, and if it does happen that way, it won't be just because we went from a 20-Teraflop machine to a 30-Teraflop machine.

[JamesP81]

If we succeed in creating an AI, will that change your views on religion or make you an atheist?

For me, personally, no. It would be no different that a test tube baby: it's still a person, and destroying it would still constitute murder before God. Any truly artifically intelligent computer would, IMO, be legally entitled to the same constitutional rights as anyone else.

Here's an interesting thought: such a being could, in a very real sense, be considered an alien (not the illegal kind, the little green men kind) because it's an intelligent being that's not human (unless we base it on a cloned human brain, a la wetware solution I talked about in #27).