Philosophy 129

The ongoing development of artificial intelligence (A.I.) is one of the most exciting and potentially transformative scientific projects of our time. It also raises a huge number of philosophical questions, which this course will pursue in great depth. The focus of the first part of the course will be foundational/definitional issues. The term ‘A.I.’ gets thrown around all the time, but what exactly is meant by that label? This question quickly leads to a host of others: what is it to think? Are thought and experience separable from conscious experience? How different can a form of thinking or experience be from our own, yet still be recognizable as a form of genuine thinking or experience? In the second part of the course, we will examine the social and ethical questions raised by A.I. in its current (or near-future) state. Does reliance on algorithms and machine learning (e.g. when banks make lending decisions or when courts impose criminal sentences) improve fairness or actually make things worse? As “intelligent” machines become more involved in human activities (e.g. self-driving cars or healthcare robots), who is to be held responsible if things go wrong? And will those machines themselves have interests that will need to be taken into consideration in our dealings with them? The third and final part of the course will consider the future of A.I. Some have argued that it is likely - perhaps even inevitable - that A.I. development will lead to an “intelligence explosion” or “singularity”, i.e. a point at which A.I. becomes radically more intelligent than humans are now. Is this in fact likely/inevitable? What reasons can be given for or against? And if such a thing were to occur, what would be the implications for humankind? What would be the role/value of human lives in that context? Are there things humans can do to guide the process toward a positive (or maximally positive) outcome?

As taught this semester, Phil 129, can satisfy group A of the Epistemology/Metaphysics requirement.