Lycan and Searle Lycan, Searle,

Lycan and Searle Lycan, Searle, and Turning meet 'Bicentennial Man' -- Computers and the question if there is a uniquely 'human' intelligence It is a pity that the mathematician and code breaker Allan Turning never lived long enough to see the 1999 Robin William's vehicle "Bicentennial Man." The film depicts a domestic android learning to become human from observing his surroundings and the behavior of his owners.

Andrew, as played by Robin Williams, appears to be capable of feeling emotions and generating original thoughts, as he evolves from his origins and adapts to his surroundings. Thus, on the surface, he seems to pass the so-called 'Turning Test' with flying colors.

What is the Turning Test? As part of his arguments against the proposition that 1950's era machines could think like humans, Allan Turing put forward the idea of an imitation game, in which a human being and a computer would be interrogated under conditions where the interrogator would not know with whom he was communicating with at any time during the test either with the human being or the machine being tested for personhood.

Turing argued that if the interrogator could not distinguish the two individuals with any accuracy through the process of blind questioning, only then it would be unreasonable not to call the computer intelligent. (Turning 442) At the end of the film "Bicentennial Man," Android Andrew demands to have his status as a person recognized by the President of the World's Congress. If Turing's imitation game was the world standard for personhood, it is likely Andrew would be accorded such a status. However, what if, instead of the Turning test, J.

Searle were head of the organization, it is likely Andrew would not be granted personhood. J. Searle is the founder of the "Chinese Room" counter argument to the Turning test of artifical intelligence, first put forth in Searle's book Minds, Brains and Programs. Searle argued that "appropriately programmed computers literally have cognitive states," but these forms of cognition can never be equated with human intelligence and personhood (Searle 69).

Searle's Chinese Room argument, argument is intended to show that while suitably programmed computers may appear to converse in a natural, even human-like language, they are not capable of truly understanding language that they speak, merely of imination. It is an argument against the possibility of true artificial intelligence ever existing. Imagine, says Searle, a thought experiment in which someone who knows only English sits alone in a room following English instructions for manipulating strings of Chinese characters.

To Chinese-speakers outside the room it appears as if someone in the room understands Chinese. No intelligent agent is there reciting the words, it is merely a performance of simulated intelligence. In other words, William's android Andrew has merely learned to effectively simulate human conciousness. To someone listening from the outside, he 'sounds' human, and seems to manipulate his emotional hardware to simulate true emotions. But this is part of the illustion that is inherent to his programing, especially when somone cannot see the inner workings in a blind test.

Thus, Andrew is not a human, and no android could ever be human according to Searle's rigorous standards. Were William Lycan, a critic of Searle's standards, President of the World's Congress, would the judgement be any different, however? Despite his critique of Searle, Lycan's stress upon biology suggests that an awareness of one's own mental state is a matter of the physical capacity of human, higher-order perceptions, which Andrew does not seem to possess either, as his physical neurology is not constantly altering like a human.

Lycan's problem with the Turning Test is its reliance upon the perceptions of the testing. Lycan suggests that then like any other perceptual or quasi-perceptual faculty, the internal attention mechanism is a mechanism and can break down.

(Lycan, 1999) There are problems with the Turning test that these two scientists do not even arise, because they are more of law rather than of neurology -- for example, how can the individual consciousness of the tester be the final authority of personhood, a judge and jury without any real appeal? Should the tester's credulousness or lack of skepticism, and the tendency of the tester to assume that the entity that things most like the tester is human be the final judgment of personhood? Is it not likely that the tester would mistake a robot for human, not because the robot was actually thinking, but because one set of responses struck the tester's faulty judgment as more or less human seeming, based upon subjective standards -- as in, this set of responses reminded me of my mother's way of thinking, therefore it must be the human and not the robotic and manufactured entity! Even if true AI is not feasible, humans, because of our own faulty and subjective wiring, might not be able to decide in a blind test, the true nature of consciousness and personhood either.

Andrew, it might be suggested, might not be human, but as there is a reasonable doubt in the.