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From: colonel@buffalo.CSNET ("Col. G. L. Sicherman")
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: man's godlike
Message-ID: <8610101644.AA02942@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 6-Oct-86 10:41:45 EDT
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Posted: Mon Oct  6 10:41:45 1986
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I'm amazed that nobody has responded to Peter Pirron's last argument:

> The belief, that man's cognitive or intelligent abilities will
> never be reached by a machine, is founded in the conscious or
> unconscious assumption of man's godlike or godmade uniqueness,
> which is supported by the religious tradition of our culture.  It
> needs a lot of self-reflection, courage and consciousness about
> one's own existential fears to overcome the need of being unique.
> I would claim, that the conviction mentioned above however
> philosophical or sophisticated it may be justified, is only the
> "RATIONALIZATION" (in the psychoanalytic meaning of the word) of
> understandable but irrational and normally unconscious existential
> fears and need of human being.

Even net.ai, which is still a chaos of wild theories, has gone beyond
regarding the a.i. question as a matter of science versus religion.
Some arguments against Pirron's conjecture:

-- If the objection to a.i. is rooted in cultural dogma, it's illogical
   to look at the psychology of the individual.  Every individual is, now
   and always, unique--though some of us may feel that we are too much
   like others.  This is quite another question than whether our species
   is unique.

-- Other animals, and even plants, have intelligence--not to mention
   viruses!  Many of us regard even a dog's intelligence as beyond the
   capabilities of a.i., at least in the way that scientists presently
   think about a.i.

-- Even an electric-eye door can be regarded as a successful implementation
   of artificial intelligence.  We skeptics' greatest doubts tend to focus
   on theories of emergent intelligence--theories as attractive to some
   modern researchers as the Philosopher's Stone was to medieval researchers,
   and (some say) with just as little basis in the nature of things.

-- To divide intelligent beings into men and machines is not necessarily
   precise or exhaustive.  For example, ghosts may be intelligent
   without belonging to either category.

-- A secular equivalent of "godlike uniqueness" is that man is special:
   that we mean more to ourselves than does anything else, living or lifeless.
   Only a scientist would argue with this.  8 |-I