The belief that development of a sentient or self-aware AI is simply a matter of enough data, connections, and processing speed is based on the premise that even human consciousness is the product of material objects and processes.
Francis Crick, the less overtly racist half of the duo who discovered DNA’s double helix, published a book in 1994 called The Astonishing Hypothesis that proposed that consciousness, or a “soul,” results from the actions of physical cells, molecules, and atoms.
It’s a reasonable proposition, since we can only measure the material world, so everything must be a product of it. Bodies obey the same physical laws as rocks and weather patterns. If something defies explanation, it’s only because we don’t have enough information yet.
Just as a mind is the product of a brain, AI is the outcome of a computer. Any nagging questions are just details, Mr. Descartes, not a debate.
Only they’re not…
[Read the entire article at Medium]