Artificial intelligence (AI) has been the subject of more movies and stories than can be recounted here, and even been the title of one. The recent release of a new movie by Alex Garland, Ex Machina, which derives from the phrase deus ex machina, or God from the machine, gives new impetus to the consideration of AI in the world. The British author and screen writer of the movie raised some interesting points in an interview published in the Washington Post. This serves to contrast Alice, the self-aware AI entity of MIND, with Ava, the AI entity in Ex Machina. Much of what he said in the interview is, however, naive in that it derives from an understanding of AI based in Sci-Fi literature, not the reality of AI. Since the premise of MIND, the novel, is that there is no reason that Alice could not develop even now, given what is understood about AI, it is worth looking at what the general public thinks of the subject as reflected in the movies and in this interview piece.
The article raises several issues, some of which are real issues and some are the result of the pop culture view of the science of artificial intelligence. It is true, for example, that there have been actual efforts by wealthy individuals to immortalize themselves by embedding their consciousness in a computer based artificial intelligence. This idea has been the grist for the mill of several recent sci-fi movies, but this does nothing to advance the understanding of actual AI and suggests only that there are some people with more money than brains.
Apart from trying to remake oneself in silicon rather than carbon in an attempt to procreate oneself, the idea of a “parental” consideration is a real one. A true AI self-aware entity, such as Alice in MIND, would almost certainly result from the probabilistic act of developing on its own with no intent on the part of the person creating the AI. A true self-aware entity, capable of independent thought and free will, would not spring fully formed into the world. There would have to be a parental role for someone who would entail humanizing the entity so that it could relate reasonably with humans. This would, perforce, be like the parenting role for a human child by guiding its development through early childhood and, for better or worse, inculcating within it the essence of the parent belief system. A self-aware entity developed from human thought processes would not, as the Post article suggested, be more like a dog than a human. On the contrary, it would be much more human like than dog like, with potential for both good and bad traits. This is the basis for much of Dr. Davidsohn’s concern in MIND, and for our own concerns.
The question of free will, as at least raised in the article, is a real one, albeit the subject of philosophical argument for centuries. The producer of the film suggests that the three Asimov laws of robotics preclude free will and therefore true artificial intelligence, a real question in MIND since Alice is constrained by the three laws by Dr. Davidsohn. While Dr. Davidsohn does not consider this in the context of free will versus determinism, the philosophical argument, within the framework of artificial intelligence, he does understand that these laws define the limits to a range of possible actions, just as our body of jurisprudence constrains members of our human society, but in no way limit the actions within the confines of the three laws. Hence the question of free will as it applies to Alice becomes a moot point as it does with humans, other than the philosophical arguments as to whether free will can even exist at all in a theist world, the question which has been argued by theologians for centuries, but of little interest to the rest of us, and, of course, to Alice who does not exist in a theistic world.
Perhaps the most interesting point raised is the conclusion that “ if you had a sentient machine, you’d have to start giving it pretty much what we currently call human rights” a conclusion central to the decisions made for Alice in MIND. Here we agree. The movie’s author suggests the existence of a sentient, self-aware machine is “not imminent” however. Mind suggests that it may not only be imminent, but posits the possibility that may have already happened is quite real.
That AI has been and will continue to be the subject of speculation is clear, that is the subject of science fiction is not quite so clear.