Can artificial intelligence become a member of the society as an autonomous personality?

Authors

Keywords:

artificial intelligence, robots, neuroscience, cognitive science, consciousness, personality, philosophy of artificial intelligence

Abstract

The development of artificial intelligence and robotics is proceeding so rapidly that many philosophers and technologists believe them to soon become human-like beings, and consequently consider attribution of moral and legal rights to them. Such attribution presupposes that robots and artificial intelligence (robot’s brain) can be autonomous agents, persons. This article discusses this possibility by comparisons of machine and human cognition on different levels, with a primarily materialist-scientific argumentation. Firstly, how humans and machines recognise and navigate the sheer material world of objects differs in essential ways. Although this is the cognition most developed in machines, they cannot form concepts like humans do, thus they lack basic spatio-temporal knowledge. Secondly, social cognition is considered, since this is the context for robots as autonomous members of the society, and some aspects of this are fairly developed in them (like interactive speech). Some authors’ discussions hint that autonomy is not really desired from robots. The third part discusses the neural and phenomenal foundations of self, consciousness and personality, to bring out some further fundamental issues with the possibility of robot agency. It will be concluded that a non-organic being cannot be a locus of personality necessary for social subjectivity.

Author Biography

  • Ave Mets, University of Tartu, 18 Ülikooli Street, Tartu 50090, Estonia

    PhD (philosophy); researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics

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Published

2022-02-28

Issue

No. 1 (2022): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology

Section

Social Philosophy

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How to Cite

Can artificial intelligence become a member of the society as an autonomous personality?. (2022). Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology, 1, 32-41. https://journals.bsu.by/index.php/philosophy/article/view/3930