Download Intentionality and artificial intelligence

Intentionality and artificial
intelligence
Michael Lacewing
[email protected]
Intentionality
• Mental states are ‘about’, or ‘directed
onto’, something, e.g. belief about
Paris, desire for chocolate.
• Intentionality has nothing to do with
intentions.
• An Intentional mental state has
Intentional content.
Intentional content
• Oedipus kills his father out of anger
– Was Oedipus angry with his father? Yes, and no
• We always think of the world in a particular
way
– Do atmospherically formed crystals in hexagonal
form reflect all wavelengths of visible light?
– Call this ‘aspectual shape’.
• Intentional object: the thing we think about
• Intentional content: object + shape
Reduction
• How can anything physical have Intentionality?
– Physical states and properties, e.g. chemical
ones, are never ‘about’ anything
• Functionalism: Intentionality is a causalfunctional property
– A belief is about dogs because it is caused by
dogs and causes behaviour towards dogs.
– But a cloud is caused by water evaporating from
the sea; yet the cloud isn’t about the sea.
Functional accounts
• Beliefs carry information about the world.
– Natural states do this, e.g. smoke carries
information about fire.
• But beliefs can be mistaken, smoke cannot.
• The function of beliefs is to represent the world
truly.
– Many natural things can malfunction.
– Mistake = malfunction
• Stomachs can malfunction, but still aren’t
‘about’ food.
The Chinese Room
• Is artificial intelligence intelligent? Searle: only if
Intentionality could be reduced to functions
One response
• The issue is the type of interaction
with the world:
– Replace the person by a computer.
– Put the computer inside a robot.
– Connect up a visual input and audio
output.
– The robot can now ‘name’ objects in
Chinese.
– Does the robot understand Chinese?
Consciousness and aspect
• Searle: the robot still doesn’t
understand, but ‘simulates’
understanding
• To understand, we need consciousness
– Aspectual shape is essential to genuine
Intentionality
– Only consciousness provides aspectual
shape (point of view)