Can a machine be a person?

Can a machine be a person?

The topic of this debate is whether machines with artificial intelligence that is able to replicate human behavior can be considered human or not. This house believes that computers are fully capable of being humans because regardless of whether it is made of the ‘wrong stuff’ if it is able to adapt to human attributes or behavior then there should be no reason to classify them as otherwise.

This argument is considered from a materialist view; which states that we are only one substance and that there is only physical or material reality. According to this theory, the ‘mind/soul’ is inexistent because it cannot be proven nor can it be identified with the body since we are just one substance made of ‘lump of flesh’ or meat (monist point of view). An example of personhood to support our theory is; Fear – a psychologically and scientifically proven condition which is caused by our brain state, electrical impulses and extraneous and environmental factors. It is evident from this that fear does not emanate from the so-called idea of the soul or mind, it is a simple reaction formulated by the mind when provoked in various circumstances. Moreover, the philosophers supporting our view are Richard Dawkins, Gilbert Ryle and John Searle.
To further develop our argument, the idea of Monism dictates that a soul is not needed to be a human, we are made up of organic matter such as bones, flesh, organs etc. This theory allows no room for the existence of the soul because it would be like talking about an individual’s personality. Similarly speaking of the mind is like speaking of bodily activities. Gilbert Ryle develops this argument (known as Behaviourism) by stating that ‘the mind in the body’ is the same as a ‘ghost in a machine’, this clearly suggests that the mind is something illusory and created as an imagination because no source is provided for its evidence. Additionally, Ryle states in his book Concept of the mind, states that ‘the idea of language of the soul is a category mistake people make as if the soul was something identifiably extra within a person’, to accentuate this point he uses the example of a visitor to Oxford, the visitor upon viewing the library and faculties and other aspects still asked ‘But where is the University’ – The analogy given, emphasizes that the mind is made up of different bodily aspects and cannot be identified as separate, you cannot analyze a person in different bits it is just one whole entity.

Opposing theories criticize this argument because although fear or anger are emotions which are not derived from any consciousness, the understanding of why we do what we do, is. Let us take for example, the example provided by John Searle; Searle imagines himself alone in a room following a computer program for responding to Chinese characters slipped under the door. Searle understands nothing of Chinese, and yet, by following the program for manipulating symbols and numerals just as a computer does, he produces appropriate strings of Chinese characters that fool those outside into thinking there is a Chinese speaker in the room. The narrow conclusion of the argument is that programming a digital computer may make it appear to understand language but does not produce real understanding. Hence the “Turing Test” is inadequate, because it shows that machines just perform prototypes installed into them without the real understanding of why they do it? What is the reason for doing it? Humans are born with an innate consciousness which allows them to obtain real knowledge for why the do things? Even examples of personhood such as Guilt and Morality cannot be explained as there is no neurological interaction in the brain causing these to affects our ideals or way of thinking.

With reference to the idea of consciousness, it is based on illusory ideas and is highly ambiguos as it cannot be proven and till then can only be seen as imagination. The example of guilty and morality are high inapplicable because again they are stored in the long term memory and therefore even if they are not rehearsed on a daily basis it will still unconsciously influence our thoughts. Similarly there is no need for understanding because even if an individual cannot explain why he does certain things it does not make him any less of a human. For example take a student who is known for rote memorizing for his test, does that make him a robot because he cannot explain what he is learning?
The only crucial different suggested by opposing theories is that machines do not have a mind or soul they way humans do and therefore there is lack of consciousness within them. However the dualist view fails to prove itself logically and it purely based on faith and belief whereas materialism is formatted with full knowledge of reasoning and logic.