General Discussions

But, in order for them to achieve sentience, wouldn't we have to make them capable of doing so? They are limited by how intelligent we make them. If we give them that possibility, however far-fetched it may seem, then I think it would only be a matter of time.

To answer that, we'd have to know how sentience developed in biological creatures and why humans are sentient and maybe dolphins or something else are sentient and why ostriches or ants aren't.

If the advanced forms of consciousness which form creativity, self-awareness and intentionality are merely learned responses based on a certain physiological complexity, then we could already have let the genie out of the bottle, so to speak.

So that essentially means that, without knowing exactly what makes us able to be creative? If so, then isn't creating a sentient robot a technical impossibility?

You wouldn't be able to answer that. Without knowing how it came to happen, you wouldn't know if you could or not.

You could very well stumble upon something.

There are some researchers working on machines which can reproduce and others working on machines which can create new programming for themselves in a form of adaptation. Put them together and you have a machine which can do everything an average animal can do... But can that then develop sentience?

That's impossible to say.

It's all very hard to predict.

That's exactly the kind of thing I fear most about technology. A machine that can reproduce or write it's own code could possibly achieve unlimited opportunities; to form it's own morals, it's own reasoning, it's own arrogance. It could very well be the biggest ever threat to humanity and I don't want to be around if and when things go wrong.

Indeed.

I have a hard time believing visions of the future where mankind and technology are not adversaries. Any kind of apparent superiority, to a developing logic, must logically mean being superior. And being superior means you should rule.

The concept of self-imposed equality is illogical--it is purely a romantic, human concept.

I agree as well. A machine of any kind that can make it's own decisions with logical thinking (however artificial it may be) is a threat. We could wind up literally building an army to destroy ourselves. Why must we dabble in things that shouldn't be tampered with? In order for the human race to survive, we've had to make sure we stay superior (in the general sense). If we were to create something that was smarter and stronger and mass produce it into a fully functioning race of it's own, who's to say that they won't turn around and make us THEIR pawns?

Voted NO!!!!!!!

Agreed with Dhampy,

But also agrees with Foxxie-kun, as in if the level of sentience as as much as our own then I would like to give them their sentience..............