Fake Plastic Minds

Speaker: Sebastian Sunday Grève

Abstract: This paper presents an argument to the conclusion that machines can acquire human mindedness, that is, they can be intelligent, conscious, sentient, etc. in precisely the way that a human being typically is. Machines are defined here as digital computers—i.e., the same type of engineered and programmed artefact as the vast majority of our modern-day computing devices—with the additional condition that these artefacts must be primarily made from non-organic materials such as silicon or plastic. Following a brief review of the history of the type of argument advanced here, a thought experiment is presented and analysed, culminating in the aforementioned conclusion. That conclusion is then defended against a number of objections.