Ex Machina (film still)
Mark Bishop, Professor of Cognitive Computing at Goldsmiths features in The Independent with an article about the limits of Artificial Intelligence.
He outlines three arguments that address the question of consciousness and computing. The first, by John Searle, dates from 1980 and is known as the Chinese Room; if a computer convinces a Chinese speaker that it understands Chinese by responding perfectly to their questions, it has passed the Turing Test. But does it really understand Chinese, or does it only simulate understanding? The second is Bishop’s own argument from his 2002 paper, Dancing With Pixies. “If it’s the case that an execution of a computer program instantiates what it feels like to be human,” he says, “experiencing pain, smelling the beautiful perfume of a long-lost lover – then phenomenal consciousness must be everywhere. In a cup of tea, in the chair you’re sitting on.”
This philosophical position – known as “panpsychism” – that all physical entities have mental attributes, is one that Bishop sees as Strong AI’s absurd conclusion. Shadbolt agrees. “Exponentials have delivered remarkable capability,” he says, “but none of that remarkable capability is sitting there reflecting on what very dull creatures we are. Not even slightly.”
The third argument Bishop makes is that there’s something about human creativity that computers just don’t get. While a computer program can compose new scores in the style of JS Bach, that sound plausibly like Bach compositions, it doesn’t design a whole new style of composition. “It might create paintings in the style of Monet,” he says, “but it couldn’t come up with, say, Duchamp’s urinal. It isn’t clear to me at all where that degree of computational creativity can come from.”
Mark Bishop’s profile at Goldsmiths:
http://www.gold.ac.uk/computing/staff/m-bishop/