This episode delves into the topic of consciousness and why it is seen as a problem by some philosophers. We briefly touched on this in our series on AI, but it also touches the topic of science and religion.  This is an issue that is dealt with in science fiction. Star Trek, especially TNG has several episodes that bear directly on this issue of what it means to be sentient with the character ‘Data’ striving to be more human, and being treated as an object rather than a sentient being due mainly to human chauvinism.  This is also explored by AI researcher David Kelley in his mediated artificial superintelligence, Uplift.  One’s opinion of the answers to these questions have significant impacts on what one expects from the field of AI, and how one might treat and interact with a potentially sentient AI system.  It begs the question of what moral footing underlies our approach to these systems, or even to non-human species in some cases. It bears on the topic of free will, and could influence one’s approach to crime and punishment.

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