Philo Artificial Intelligence

Catalog description

Philosophers and scientists were thinking about AI well before AI even existed. Now, AI is an increasingly pervasive reality of modern life. This course surveys the history of AI itself—the term “artificial intelligence” was coined in 1956—as well as the evolution of thinking about whether human-designed machines might ever be correctly described as intelligent. Thinking about artificial intelligence forces us to think carefully about what we understand intelligence to be, and how it is related to more general concepts, such as mind, personal identity, consciousness, and free will. Many have argued that human intelligence is the basis of human moral agency, which raises the possibility of artificial moral agents. Contemporary AI systems are impressive enough in their capabilities that these questions are becoming less and less theoretical, and more culturally pressing.