Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!udel!princeton!phoenix!pucc!RLWALD
From: RLWALD@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Robert Wald)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free Will & Self-Awareness
Message-ID: <5100@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 2 May 88 00:28:40 GMT
References: <1029@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4134@super.upenn.edu> <3200014@uiucdcsm> <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: RLWALD@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 30
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article


In article <1029@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
 
>In article <1484@pt.cs.cmu.edu> yamauchi@SPEECH2.CS.CMU.EDU (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
>For AI workers (not AI developers/exploiters who are just raiding the
>programming abstractions), the main problem they should recognise is
>that a rule-based or other mechanical account of cognition and decision
>making is at odds with the doctrine of free will which underpins most Western
>morality.  It is in no way virtuous to ignore such a social force in
>the name of Science.  Scientists who seek moral, ethical, epistemological
>or methodological vacuums are only marginalising themselves into
>positions where social forces will rightly constrain their work.
 
 
 
 
    Are you saying that AI research will be stopped because when it ignores
free will, it is immoral and people will take action against it?
 
    When has a 'doctrine' (which, by the way, is nothing of the sort with
respect to free will) any such relationship to what is possible?
 
 
 
 
 
-Rob Wald                Bitnet: RLWALD@PUCC.BITNET
                         Uucp: {ihnp4|allegra}!psuvax1!PUCC.BITNET!RLWALD
                         Arpa: RLWALD@PUCC.Princeton.Edu
"Why are they all trying to kill me?"
     "They don't realize that you're already dead."     -The Prisoner