Again with the Robots.

Giving rights to one group doesn't mean it prevents the giving of rights to another. There's no reason why we can't give rights to humans and machines simultaneously: apart from the massive logistical problems involved in, ya know, fixing all the world's problems.

concur

Marc wrote:...apart from the massive logistical problems involved...

slightly understated, but i guess i agree too.

Alright, with that settled, what about robots that play music! And paint pictures, write poetry etc. In what way will that compare to what we have previously considered 'Art' ?

...yeah, I'm just trying to egg people on, so?

Is it a sum of programming or a sum of experiences that donates their paintings the existential quality of 'art'

Glenjamin wrote: and if you're i'm poor, i can't help- this site opened my eyes a bit

If you put in that you make zero dollars a year it breaks the form and says you're the richest person in the world.

Also, I thought this would be of interest to you call:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism

It's about Connectionism, which is a broad term for a field of computational science that is involved with having multiple small processing units that each handle different types of computation, and connecting all of them to each other, MUCH LIKE A HUMAN BRAIN.

The most well known area of Connectionism would be Neural Networking, which is basically what I described above. It's a way of creating a computer that functions like a human. It has receptive units, that give the machine input (functioning like eyes and ears), these receptors process what they see and hand it to another unit that decides which part of the network the data should go. It's then sent there to be processed and output (unless it's processed and sent to another unit before output). All of this information is retained by the machine so it knows how to respond if it is given the same information from it's receptors, and can process it faster next time (Effectively, the machine is 'learning', based on a type of fuzzy logic).

Generally, the machine is programmed with preset instructions on how to process some information. For example, if it hears the word 'hello' it could be instructed that the proper way to process this should end with the output of saying 'hello' back. The issue with this is that computers are precise by nature. So if, for example, it was programmed to say hello back to a man, it may not respond in the right way to a woman (different voice frequency, etc). You would have to give it thousands of different scenarios so that it would build it's fuzzy logic up to the point where it would say hello back to everyone. Even after all that, it would be thrown by a person walking up to it and saying 'Hey'. Computers lack the 'close enough' way of understanding things. But still, with enough fuzzy logic the possibility is there. It would just take a shitload of data to be able to comprehend things in the way a human does.

See now that, to me, would still just be a computer with a lot of programming.

Like an Xbox?

Like a living, learning Xbox, yes.

Tom wrote:Is it a sum of programming or a sum of experiences that donates their paintings the existential quality of 'art'

Hmmm. I ask inquisitively, "would it make a difference? And which do you suppose we attribute to ourselves, and why do we attribute it as such?"

I believe that yes it would make a difference and that i attribute, to us, a sum of experiences that makes a man a man. Yes you can draw many parallels between a man (or woman...) and a machine. We have hardware and operating systems, like machines, we just call them instinct. We have prescribed ways of operation just like a machines we call it personality. But unlike a machine these are not manually entered but are rather brought about by our upbringing. Social, cultural, parental, peers and other less exertive factors go into making a person 'a personallity'. A little person starts with nothing but a set of perameters or instincts which tell it when it is hungry, tired etc and what to do in those predetermined situations. As it grows it learns what to do, how to fend for itself etc. Sure it can be specifically taught these things, one person to another, but you can't reach into its brain and twig the right receptors to turn a baby into a toddler, a toddler into a child and a child into a grownup. These are learnt. And, as stated above, not from just one person or persons. These are taken in from everywhere. The world creates a person. their experiences set for them the way they will be. A machine isn't taught. It starts from scratch, but if you turned a computer on, with nothing but its circiutry (?) and left it in the middle of a busy room for years and years it would be the same as it ever was.. even if it had the processing power of all the humans on the planet at one time.

which actually begs the question.. is it the computer which is intellegent or the software that drives it? Could self-aware software be the 'soul' of a machine?

Yes, that is interesting.

Could you not say that the ‘environment’ is programming the individual? Or because it has no intentions you would think not? But what about parents, or society at large? Don’t they sort of ‘program’ their children in a certain way? And what if the computer could learn (I think you may have already addressed this, but I wasn’t quite sure), as in it, too, like a human/other animals, had the ability to ‘absorb’ environmental situations, or whatever?

Yeah, the software question is weird.

Why don't we break this down into what i see as two separate (though connected) questions-

1) When is something alive?

2) What is independent thought?

Without those two queries, this discussion (i think) cannot be resolved.

Yes, good points.

Though for point 1 would it be better to say "When is something conscious"? Or did you intend point 2 to take care of that?

... in fact, you better just explain point 2 more.