Artificial Intelligence is at a turning point, with a substantial increase in projects aiming to implement sophisticated forms of human intelligence in machines. This research attempts to model specific forms of intelligence through brute-force search heuristics and also reproduce features of human perception and cognition, including emotions. Such goals have implications for artificial consciousness, with some arguing that it will be achievable once we overcome short-term engineering challenges. We believe, however, that phenomenal consciousness cannot be implemented in machines. This becomes (...) clear when considering emotions and examining the dissociation between consciousness and attention in humans. While we may be able to program ethical behavior based on rules and machine learning, we will never be able to reproduce emotions or empathy by programming such control systems—these will be merely simulations. Arguments in favor of this claim include considerations about evolution, the neuropsychological aspects of emotions, and the dissociation between attention and consciousness found in humans. Ultimately, we are far from achieving artificial consciousness. (shrink)

This paper describes a generative theory of bugs. It claims that all bugs of a procedural skill can be derived by a highly constrained form of problem solving acting on incomplete procedures. These procedures are characterized by formal deletion operations that model incomplete learning and forgetting. The problem solver and the deletion operator have been constrained to make it impossible to derive “star‐bugs”—algorithms that are so absurd that expert diagnosticians agree that the alogorithm will never be observed as a bug. (...) Hence, the theory not only generates the observed bugs, it fails to generate star‐bugs.The theory has been tested on an extensive data base of bugs for multidigit subtraction that was collected with the aid of the diagnostic systems buggy and debuggy. In addition to predicting bug occurrence, by adoption of additional hypotheses, the theory also makes predictions about the frequency and stability of bugs, as well as the occurrence of certain latencies in processing time during testing. Arguments are given that the theory can be applied to domains other than subtraction and that it can be extended to provide a theory of procedural learning that accounts for bug acquisition. Lastly, particular care has been taken to make the theory principled so that it can not be tailored to fit any possible data. (shrink)

The emperor's new mind (hereafter Emperor) is an attempt to put forward a scientific alternative to the viewpoint of according to which mental activity is merely the acting out of some algorithmic procedure. John Searle and other thinkers have likewise argued that mere calculation does not, of itself, evoke conscious mental attributes, such as understanding or intentionality, but they are still prepared to accept the action the brain, like that of any other physical object, could in principle be simulated by (...) a computer. In Emperor I go further than this and suggest that the outward manifestations ofconscious mental activity cannot even be properly simulated by calculation. To support this view, I use various arguments to show that the results of mathematical insight, in particular, do not seem to be obtained algorithmically. The main thrust ofthis work, however, is to present an overview ofthe present state of physical understanding and to show that an important gap exists at the point where, quantum and classical physics meet, as well as to speculate on how the conscious brain might be taking advantage ofwhatever new physics is needed to fill this gap to achieve its nonalgorithmic effects. (shrink)

A critique of several recent objections to John Searle's Chinese-Room Argument against the possibility of "strong AI" is presented. The objections are found to miss the point, and a stronger argument against Searle is presented, based on a distinction between "syntactic" and "semantic" understanding.

Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is here criticized from the perspective of a more naturalistic and less compromising form of materialism. Parallels are explored between the problem of cognitive activity and the somewhat more settled problem of vital activity. The lessons drawn suggest that functionalism in the philosophy of mind may be both counterproductive as a research strategy, and false as a substantive position.

I argue in this article that there is a mistake in Searle's Chinese room argument that has not received sufficient attention. The mistake stems from Searle's use of the Church-Turing thesis. Searle assumes that the Church-Turing thesis licences the assumption that the Chinese room can run any program. I argue that it does not, and that this assumption is false. A number of possible objections are considered and rejected. My conclusion is that it is consistent with Searle's argument to hold (...) onto the claim that understanding consists in the running of a program. (shrink)

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a massive interdisciplinary project involving hundreds of researchers across more than eighty institutions that seeks to leverage cutting edge information and communication technologies to create a multi-level brain simulation platform (BSP). My worry is that some brain models running on the BSP will be persons. If this is right then not only will the in silico experiments the HBP envisions being carried on the BSP be unethical the mere termination of certain brain models running (...) on the BSP will be unethical. To assess the possible personhood of certain brain simulations I consider John Searle’s critique of strong AI. In arguing that Searle’s critique fails I conclude that the HBP must tread carefully and devise strict rules on how research using the BSP ought to proceed. (shrink)

I have laid out what seem to me to be the most promising arguments on opposing sides of the question of whether what humans regard as the first-person accessible aspects of pain could also be implemented in robots. I have emphasized the ways in which the thought experiments in the respective arguments attempt to marshal hypothetical first- person accessible evidence concerning how one’s own mental life appears to oneself. In the Chinese room argument, a crucial premise involves the thesis that (...) from a lack of it seeming that one is in pain, one can conclude that one is not in pain. There’s a counterpart thesis playing a crucial role in the prosthetic neurons argument, one asserting an entailment from its seeming that one is in pain to one’s being in pain. I further suggested that by adopting a HOT theory of consciousness, of the sort reviewed in Pereplyotchik’s chapter in the present volume, one is thereby in a better position to endorse the prosthetic neurons argument over the Chinese room argument than to make the opposite appraisal. (shrink)

The principles of classical physics, including deterministic dynamics and observability of physical states, are incompatible with the existence of unobservable conscious minds that possess free will. Attempts to directly accommodate consciousness in a classical world lead to philosophical paradoxes such as causally ineffective consciousness and possibility of alternate worlds in which functional brain isomorphs behave identically but lack conscious experiences. Here, we show that because Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance is based on a deficient nineteenth century classical physics, it is (...) inherently flawed and implies evolutionary inexplicable epiphenomenal consciousness. Consequently, if consciousness is a fundamental ingredient of physical reality, no psychophysical laws such as Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance are needed to establish correspondence between conscious experiences and brain function. Quantum mechanics is the most successful and only modern physical theory capable of naturally accommodating consciousness without violation of physical laws. (shrink)

In the first section of the article, we examine some recent criticisms of the connectionist enterprise: first, that connectionist models are fundamentally behaviorist in nature (and, therefore, non-cognitive), and second that connectionist models are fundamentally associationist in nature (and, therefore, cognitively weak). We argue that, for a limited class of connectionist models (feed-forward, pattern-associator models), the first criticism is unavoidable. With respect to the second criticism, we propose that connectionist modelsare fundamentally associationist but that this is appropriate for building models (...) of human cognition. However, we do accept the point that there are cognitive capacities for which any purely associative model cannot provide a satisfactory account. The implication that we draw from is this is not that associationist models and mechanisms should be scrapped, but rather that they should be enhanced.In the next section of the article, we identify a set of connectionist approaches which are characterized by “active symbols” — recurrent circuits which are the basis of knowledge representation. We claim that such approaches avoid criticisms of behaviorism and are, in principle, capable of supporting full cognition. In the final section of the article, we speculate at some length about what we believe would be the characteristics of a fully realized active symbol system. This includes both potential problems and possible solutions (for example, mechanisms needed to control activity in a complex recurrent network) as well as the promise of such systems (in particular, the emergence of knowledge structures which would constitute genuine internal models). (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory posits a new kind of information, which, given certain constraints, constitutes consciousness. Searle objects to IIT because its appeal to information relies on observer-relative features. This misses the point that IIT’s notion of integrated information is intrinsic, the opposite of observer-relative. Moreover, Searle overlooks the possibility that IIT could be embraced as an extension of his theory. While he insists that causal powers of the brain account for consciousness, he maintains that these causal powers aren’t tied to (...) protoplasmic material. Whatever these causal powers are, they don’t consist in mere information-processing or computation. IIT agrees, and also positively characterizes the relevant causal powers as those involved in generating integrated information. Examining the further commitments of each theory reveals that IIT renews a fundamentally ontological challenge to information-processing and computational theories of mind. (shrink)

Integrated Information Theory posits a new kind of information, which, given certain constraints, constitutes consciousness. Searle objects to IIT because its appeal to information relies on observer-relative features. This misses the point that IIT’s notion of integrated information is intrinsic, the opposite of observer-relative. Moreover, Searle overlooks the possibility that IIT could be embraced as an extension of his theory. While he insists that causal powers of the brain account for consciousness, he maintains that these causal powers aren’t tied to (...) protoplasmic material. Whatever these causal powers are, they don’t consist in mere information-processing or computation. IIT agrees, and also positively characterizes the relevant causal powers as those involved in generating integrated information. Examining the further commitments of each theory reveals that IIT renews a fundamentally ontological challenge to information-processing and computational theories of mind. (shrink)

Connectionism provides hope for unifying work in neuroscience, computer science, and cognitive psychology. This promise has met with some resistance from Classical Computionalists, which may have inspired Connectionists to retaliate with bold, inflationary claims on behalf of Connectionist models. This paper demonstrates, by examining three intimately connected issues, that these inflationary claims made on behalf of Connectionism are wrong. This should not be construed as an attack on Connectionism, however, since the inflated claims made on its behalf have the look (...) of cures for which there are no ailments. There is nothing wrong with Connectionism for its failure to solve illusory problems. (shrink)