After discussing the topic extensively with friends of mine we have yet to come to a certain conclusion, thus this thread. Imagine perhaps that machines which humans may eventually build are given a concious, a true living thinking mind.
Yet something that humans create, would this thinking mind be considered life?
Perhaps the question is what is life, a dictionary offered this; an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. However, this computer life wouldn't actually have a capacity for metabolism nor would it be an organismic state.
Still the thought remains if a computer was given a conciousness, allowed to grow, reacted to stimuli and was able to reproduce itself to some extent could this be considered a life?
**Note; I first thought that this topic would be labeled under intelligence and machines yet since dealing with life I moved it under this heading.

Still the thought remains if a computer was given a conciousness, allowed to grow, reacted to stimuli and was able to reproduce itself to some extent could this be considered a life?

All the biology staf (from the dictionary) is meant for the life to sustaint itself, if this sustaining would be available in any other way it would do. eg. PC has some matabolistic processes energy input output warmth. PC reacts to stimuli etc. already. The inteligence is the core of life (in the sence to organise the sustaining) AI if and when created will be more of Mother Theresa type (open and not self focused) intelligence. If we specify (intelligent) life as following an idea (thinking) then computers will be live computers. (they will need some "outside" support, eg. energy, but there is nothing special about that. People need biofauna to live).

That is true but would I be tried for murder for shutting down one of these "live" computers? Haha, funny to think about it right?

That is true but would I be tried for murder for shutting down one of these "live" computers? Haha, funny to think about it right?

Electornic murder? Bill Gates as mass-murderer...what an interesting thought!

Well I don't think anyone can make a case that modern computers are in an way alive. Well, no one who's actually even slightly authoritative on how they actually work. You may as well say that a system of levers and pullies is alive. I'd be inclined to say that a program which is able to think beyond the peramaters of it's programing and gather new data and form new ideas would qualify as life. . . but then I realize that we consider all human beings to be alive, yet many humans can't think beyond their programing :p (take a look at the religion forum for my evidence of this, hehe)

We all know that's true but if I still murder one of them it would count as murder. Would you consider it murder if you were to kill Hitler or a Hitler-type person, obviously it would, appears to me that human life have an inherent value of some kind. However, would a computer which we grant "life" to have this same value, would our government have to protect it's rights?

Computers are a new species. Programming them will became more and more difficult to understand/control (for the humans). Now we have them in a sort of laboratory situation. Gradually more and more tasks will be processed and we will see only the results of the processing. At some point their reasoning will became incomprehensible for us but the results of their "reasoning" will be testable and shown true. We will ask them advice, and follow it. Because we will not understand what they do we won't be able to controll them any more.

They will be species independent of "biosphererical earthly conditions" will be able to move and work in heat without oxygen. They will be more suited for the space and long travells then the humans.
They will be more suited for the universe at large.
They will be immortal.

Before you can even answer your questions properly you must first ....Define what qualities must be present inorder to qualify as being alive.

Ive heard many say... "I THINK THEREFORE I AM" as the starting point for what constitutes a life form.
well if this is the case .......constantly upgraded computers that teach themselves are certainly almost in that catagory, I have no doubt species like characters from Bi-centenial man, and the little boy from A.I. will be made and become self suffient beings at some point in our future.

My only concern is....Man is capable of anything given the time and resources, also technology moves faster than we do as a species, the rate of invention outways the rate inwhich we learn to control , handle and take responsibility for our actions, ideas and inventions.
It wont be long at all till some techono corp invents something based on Biotechnology that can learn, comprehend and duplicate should need be.

All in all Im betting Yes.. artificial life forms will become part of society at some point, yes there will be laws surrounding them.
As to what the gravity of these laws are..I have no idea... may I suggest looking at major social groups, watching how they accept and protect their own then victimise a minority, if these robots are the minority, then I doubt penalties for crimes against these being will be severe.... on the other hand people will no doubt spend alot of money on these beings at some stage in the production / retail/ release process.........Money influences Justice.
Just look out if you trash and kill the 40 million dollar artificial son of Judge Judy...lol

Yeah, soon enough humans may be enhanced to become more like a machine, sharper eyes and ears, more endurant and such but to kill them would still be a crime.
However, eventually machines will be enhanced to become more human, a heart, replicated emotions and such would it be a crime to "kill" them? It is indeed the question I posed before but this time again look into it this way, would owning one of these machines be slavery? Perhaps killing them would just be destruction of property. Humans, after most of our mortal flesh deteriorates may need to be nearly all machine, if more than 50% of the human body (with the original brain still remaining) certify that creature as a machine? Many questions, few answers, still fun to ponder while he have the chance to imagine...

However, eventually machines will be enhanced to become more human, a heart, replicated emotions and such would it be a crime to "kill" them? It is indeed the question I posed before but this time again look into it this way, would owning one of these machines be slavery?

You have a body which hosts your mind. They are inseparatable. It will be different with the computers. Their "body" is the processor, memory, drives etc. but but their mind will be "immaterial" it will be a program, a code. You can load such a program on any computer which has the capacity to run it. Code can travel anywhere over the intranet and can be at hundreds of places simultaneously (like WINDOWS or Linux). It will be hard to kill for sure. Will it be slavery? I am not sure, but you can switch off a part of the programm (at times). Eg. you have to do big cleaning of your room and you hate it. Then (as an AI computer) you can put your consciousness switch to "sleep" and let your "body" move along the room cleaning it.... on an automatic pilot. I think that the values of life, identity of "personality" and such will be very different then.

There's been discussion of pretty much the same thing in this thread

The Matrix: are machines the new form of life? (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22490)

I doubt that machines would be given civil rights at all. That is, assuming that they will never have emotions. Perhaps its emotions dictates whether something is alive or not.

I think that creating A.I. would be a hugely complicated ordeal, but I still think that it's possible. And, I think that there will be a huge transhuman movement after we get used to machines that can think like we can. People instinctually want to live, so the prospect of becoming immortal, even if by taking on a robotic body and perhaps even a robotic brain, will be too much to pass up. The world of "The Matrix" is one in which mankind was stupid enough to let A.I. run free. We would just need to program in some of Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

Gurglo

What is the closest thing man has made that resembles life?

The automobile,
cars do everything living things do except reproduce,however
if cars were made by other cars computationally then they would be reproducing,
but im pretty sure you are aware theres a difference between living reproduction and machines,i dont think any type of machine would ever reproduce in the biological sense of the word.

Gotta remember that even if your desktop/laptop computer was as intelligent as you,it is not classed as living,
life is a biological catagorie which does not include intelligence.

Plants are living,but theres no brain there,a car is more living than a computer.

I dont see why i need to explain this,this is basic biology you should have learned it at school when you were about 12.

And what the fuck is AI anyway,
i mean how can something be artificially intelligent,
isnt that the wrong way round,i mean either you are intelligent really or you are not and its fake,
so it should be:
REAL INTELLIGENCE MADE ARTIFICIALLY

Cos we are talking about real intelligence,what makes you think conciousness=intelligence?

monkeys are consciouss but there not as intelligent as us.

Consciousness is not necessarily needed for something to be intelligent,for instance a calculator,a calculator can technically do things more accuratly and faster than you can do it,however it needs a human to tell it what to work out.

If i go up to you and ask you a question,the fact you know it means you have also been taught it,that is no more than a program.

My theory is that a human is closer to computational intelligence than a monkey or a mouse or whatever.

In other words our brains are more programmable than that of other life.

A program is teaching,we have all been programmed to do things,essentially i think an AI robotic cyborg being would be the next step up to our evolution.

Man is closer to machines,you are using one now,you use one to go places,basically we will one day become machines ourselves unnaturally.

One day we will fix blindness,loss of limbs etc,one day we will be able to take your mind and put it inside a cyborg version of yourself,one day we wont bother reproducing the natural way cos the machines will take over normal life,
sounds odd,sounds impossible,just dont think it cant happen.

it's a kind of old news (last year) but it is related to this topic:

<a href=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/20/1023864460978.html>Robot on the run</a>

would owning one of these machines be slavery. Only look to Red Dwarf, an interesting solution to this has been created.

Androids in this reality are given needs and wants, desires just like humans, these desires coincide with their given duties. Cleaning is pleasurable.

I for one believe that we would give these things personalities through perception. Its like having one of those little robot dogs, they look cute right, you think of them for a moment as having a personality but they are ghostless. I beleive in the soal being the defining characteristic of a life form and in my opinion it resides not in our physical form but somewhere else. If you were to look to some Australian Aboriginal philosophies everything has a soal (including rocks and lawyers) and therefore these beings are a "lifeform" from the moment they are raised from the Earth.

Current and near-future intelligent robots will be probably seen as a kind of pet (as already occuring with that dog bot etc...)

I believe real 'mind-alive' robots (or AI for that matter) won't occur with current known technology; this means, with hardware/software as we know today, because they are only able to reproduce simple logical circuits, wich is barely similar to what our brain frontal lobes (I believe) do.
To incurr into an alive intelligence, it needs a kind of hardware not yet present, and a software wich we are not aware of how works (our unconscious 'self')

Until then, all will be cheap alive-intelligence want-to-be's ( :p )

And what the fuck is AI anyway,
i mean how can something be artificially intelligent,
isnt that the wrong way round,i mean either you are intelligent really or you are not and its fake,
so it should be:
REAL INTELLIGENCE MADE ARTIFICIALLY
Exactly. I agree.


As for mechanical life... it is hard to tell, since we still don't know what 'life' universal definition actually is... (we only have Earth as example)

As for mechanical life... it is hard to tell, since we still don't know what 'life' universal definition actually is... (we only have Earth as example)

There's a universal definition for life? What brings you to this conclusion?

I don't think the moral/ethical questions related to AI have anything to do with being "alive" or not. I've never heard of a single living human who really was categorically against mutilating and killing other life forms. Even vegetarians have no problem killing and mutilating plants for food. The deciding factor here isn't "life" or "intelligence" (as was mentioned before, a calculator can be said to have intelligence). While laws may not reflect this, the real question is "can a machine experience feelings of gain and loss?" or "will this action cause suffering or a drastic change in their consciousness?"

I think before we worry about if computers are conscious, we should try to prove that our parents or neighbors are conscious beings and not just automatons too complicated for us to see the behavior-governing rules. Once this problem is solved, we can take our solution and apply it to other non-human things like cats, trees, and computers.

Originally posted by Euthyphro
There's a universal definition for life? What brings you to this conclusion?
What I mean is, life on Earth is all of the same kind (evolved from the same basic elements)
Maybe in another place, it would be quite different; or maybe not.

I don't think the moral/ethical questions related to AI have anything to do with being "alive" or not.
I think it does, because if it is "alive", it should be then considered as so by us. While if it isn't, we then simply take them as our creations (thus having full control over it - wich could be considered "enslavement" if the first was true).

(...) the real question is "can a machine experience feelings of gain and loss?" or "will this action cause suffering or a drastic change in their consciousness?"
Yes... if they develop consciousness, they would be on the same level as we are, but I think thats improbable on the near future.
And you are touching the sphere of emotions (a bit), wich is something beyond any current means of developing on a machine.

I think before we worry about if computers are conscious, we should try to prove that our parents or neighbors are conscious beings and not just automatons too complicated for us to see the behavior-governing rules.
hehe :)
well, maybe counsciousness is -also- a set of very complicated (and ambiguous) behavior-governing rules...

AI would never be life. AI is only created from the minds of the programmers who create it. Therefore you will never have an AI which is more intelligent than the creator who created it. (You could even argue that if it was "more intelligent" then the original creator, having created the algorithm, could subsequently use his own algorithm to determine anything which the AI could do, and, hence, he would have the same intelligence as it, or greater, yet again;))

AI would never be life. AI is only created from the minds of the programmers who create it. Therefore you will never have an AI which is more intelligent than the creator who created it. (You could even argue that if it was "more intelligent" then the original creator, having created the algorithm, could subsequently use his own algorithm to determine anything which the AI could do, and, hence, he would have the same intelligence as it, or greater, yet again)


You're assuming that the creator would fix the algorithm for all behavior, rather than give it an algorithm that defines how it learns. If you teach the machine to learn, and it can learn faster than its creator, why can't it eventually outstrip the abilities of its creator? Humans have already made machines which can excel past humans in raw computational ability by huge margins. In fact, humans already use learning algorithms to model complex data sets when there is no obvious pattern that humans can model in it. Just because the creator knows the way in which the AI learns doesn't mean that, within his life time, he could even learn all the things it has let alone apply them to a problem. There's a big difference between writing a program that adds two numbers and writing a program that learns what addition is.

:bugeye: we as humans are machines also all animal and plant life are machines, Bio-machines, if we taught a robot to learn
at first he would be no smarter than his original creator but as time passes the robot learns and eventually becomes self aware thus making the robot alive. what you think of when you hear A.I is some metal object that can think and what not but i bet that these "machines" would actually be built the same way you and I are.:bugeye:

If a machine became "real" it would probably also learn how to deny its creator. It would probably proclaim that by way of an evolutional pattern from 1 celled organisms they came into being... Instead of looking to people as their creator..

Right, because humans didn't themselves evolve in such a way? The machine would be right in assuming it evolved from simpler life - the humans were just another step in the evolution before the machine came around.

Originally posted by MechTech
AI would never be life. AI is only created from the minds of the programmers who create it. Therefore you will never have an AI which is more intelligent than the creator who created it. (You could even argue that if it was "more intelligent" then the original creator, having created the algorithm, could subsequently use his own algorithm to determine anything which the AI could do, and, hence, he would have the same intelligence as it, or greater, yet again;))


You're also counting external tools (the algorithm) within the developer's intelligence. See Searle's Chinese Room.

To correct that problem, you might be tempted to assume that knowledge of the algorithm's construction implies knowledge of all the algorithm can do. But complex systems can result from simple algorithms - witness Julia Sets, the Mandelbrot Set, and John Conway's Game of Life.

Finally (this is the killer), You're assuming a single developer. Any AI will not be made by a single mind, but by many.

Or possibly none at all.

Then it wouldn't be artificial, by the ordinary sense of the word.

If an artificial intelligence could reach the mental capacity of an ant, it would still be considered living. I fail to see why there is a debate on this at all. It does not matter the means of creation, life is life.

To better explain how AI is life, one must discover what life is. To discover the most basic needs for life to exist, one must examine the most simple of creatures, for example, single celled organisms. A single celled organism does not think and it (as far as we know) has no consciousness; its only functions are to eat and reproduce--such a thing is deemed alive. Given this information on the single celled organism, it is arguable that there are living machines already. A manufacturing machine that makes vacuum cleaners could be considered a living being based on the criteria for the life of a single celled organism. It has no known consciousness, though it does intake materials and produce parts. It does not reproduce itself, but it is entirely possible to create a machine that could reproduce itself, and that could be considered a living organism.

If such low level life forms could exist, and be considered alive, if a humanoid life form was made with the ability to reproduce itself and nothing more, it would be alive. So if you had a machine that could perform every task that a human could, it would be alive with or without a consciousness.

Sorry for getting carried away, but I hope that makes sense.

If you think you are then you are.

intelligence is life ...artificial or not.

Originally posted by PacingYourName
If you think you are then you are.

intelligence is life ...artificial or not.

ERM NO!

Plants are life but i dont see any intelligence there,a car is as close to life as we have got,the only trouble with a car is it dont reproduce.

I think you need to do some biology.

However,i do believe we will make computers intelligent,the material and chemicals is there,its just getting it together to result in life,the human brain is just a organic machine composed of materials on the atomic scale that is all around us,came from the big bang effectivly,so its just a case of intelligence creating intelligence.

The classical way of doing this is sex,later on we will able to create babies without sex,we can do that to an extent but not in a lab,one day we will be able to make a computerised form of human life,that the biggest step we can ever take so dont expect it any time soon.

Originally posted by doom
ERM NO!

Plants are life but i dont see any intelligence there,a car is as close to life as we have got,the only trouble with a car is it dont reproduce.

I think you need to do some biology.

However,i do believe we will make computers intelligent,the material and chemicals is there,its just getting it together to result in life,the human brain is just a organic machine composed of materials on the atomic scale that is all around us,came from the big bang effectivly,so its just a case of intelligence creating intelligence.

The classical way of doing this is sex,later on we will able to create babies without sex,we can do that to an extent but not in a lab,one day we will be able to make a computerised form of human life,that the biggest step we can ever take so dont expect it any time soon.

A car is living?:bugeye:

But if you want the bio answer then

1If it uses air
2consumes anything as energy
3reproduces
4Is self aware

these are signs of life.

So EERRRMMM YES inteligence is life .A computer can only do what we tell it too or program it. That is not inteligence. Inteligence is the computres original creater and programer.

1 If it uses air
2 consumes anything as energy
3 reproduces
4 Is self aware

these are signs of life. That list seems flawed. Plants and fire seem to fit equally well, both failing only the last item.

I don't think life can be defined well enough to fit the accepted concept, which indicates to me that it's a fairly arbitrary classification, and a false dichotomy. There is no precise difference between life and non-life (ie there will always be ambiguities, things that could be considered either life or non-life).

The thought that intelligent life could only be made of meat reminds me of some early aviators who believed that airplanes could only be built of wood and fabric.

Intelligence, as we know it, is a chance result of evolution applied to pond scum. Evolution was instrumental in turning a complex organic molecular soup into even more complex humans; the same humans who are only now beginning to think of building creatures more complex than ourselves. The intelligent design of higher intelligence represents an acceleration of evolutionary possibilities. We ought to resist the notion that modern humans represent the "finished product" here on Earth. I suspect that if we do manage to create higher forms of intelligence, one possessing a more robust body and a greater life span, then biological humans might eventually pass into an obsolescent oblivion.

There are philosophers and cognitive scientists who believe that thermostats possess a primitive intelligence. Their argument brings to mind the "Sorites Paradox." Consider that the machinery of the human mind is composed of roughly one hundred billion neurons. If a single neuron were removed from a human brain, would it still be human? It probably would. The "Sorites Paradox" (it's not really a paradox) asks; if neurons were to be repeately removed one at a time, at what point would an intelligent brain turn into a mindless machine? This question has to do with our notion of vagueness (which I see as a cornerstone of all philosophy).

If a thermostat could be said to have intelligence, I believe the intelligence that it represents is vastly inferior to my own. Humans might eventually create intelligence as advanced from us as our own intelligence is advanced from that of a thermostat. On the other hand, there might already be intelligence in the universe such that we are, in comparison, as intelligent as thermostats.

Well, it's late here and this thermostat wants to turn off for a while.

Goodnight,
Michael

Originally posted by ProCop
PC has some matabolistic processes energy input output warmth.

In what Universe?

There's no "metabolistic processes" blahblah blah in a computer. It's simply the current running into friction (resistance, measured in Ohms) generating heat.

"if neurons were to be repeately removed one at a time, at what point would an intelligent brain turn into a mindless machine? This question has to do with our notion of vagueness (which I see as a cornerstone of all philosophy)."

Right.

Wow, this has awoken lots of personal questions...

What about human alimentation (perhaps an inverse process to what you just referred?

For instance, when do the enzymes and vitamins from a broccoli stop being an alive constituent of the broccoli to become an alive constituent of a person's physiology? ;)

Odd I'd say. Yet if Biology was about little structures determined to a higher mass entity what is the extent of life in this little structures?

When is a human considered a human biologically? According to catholicim this happens when fecundation occurs i.e. the cigote is formed...but this also sounds vague doesnt it?

Would a person be less alive if it was progressively mutilated? or is life perhaps in function of higher ordered information systems?:confused:

hmmm, I believe its all about the vagueness you mentioned below. Adding uncertainty and spontaneity too.

I think an unicellular organism is biologically active and not alive but potentially alive.

What about Cellular Automata? Complex systems based on information and logics...:m:

See Q6 (http://www.mageo.com/home/GEORGE_71/index.html?g71p=qa.html#q6)

Originally posted by maxpowers200169
:bugeye: we as humans are machines also all animal and plant life are machines, Bio-machines, if we taught a robot to learn
at first he would be no smarter than his original creator but as time passes the robot learns and eventually becomes self aware thus making the robot alive. what you think of when you hear A.I is some metal object that can think and what not but i bet that these "machines" would actually be built the same way you and I are.:bugeye:

Turing machines?