Are you alive?

Are you alive?

Human: Let me begin by asking you a question that I don't think you would be able to ask me, are you alive, or let me rephrase that, do you consider yourself to be alive?

Robot: Before I answer your question, I would first like to…

H: Wait, wait, you just used the word ‘like.’ Do you have likes and dislikes? In fact, are you capable of liking?

R: As you know, the word ‘like’ is commonly used in human discourse. I used it within the parameters of ordinary conversation. I could have said ‘I want’ or ‘I need’. Would you prefer (notice I didn't say ‘like’)…

H: Oh, you're really getting too too clever.

R… If I use one of those?

H: No that's fine. Go ahead, you have a point.

R: Thank you for your acknowledgment. To continue, I would like to point out to you that I could have easily asked you the question: Are you alive or do you consider yourself to be alive? And, I would go further and ask, if you answer in the affirmative, what makes you to be alive?

H: Well now we're getting somewhere. This should be interesting.

R: Is that part of your answer?

H: It could be. It's an aside, a meta-comment.

R: I understand meta-comments. I don't know if it contributes to the answer.

H: All right then, I'll try to get inside your mind – I mean – into your brain and think the way you do. That way we can be on the same wavelength.

R: What wavelength are you on at the present moment?

H: Let's not get into wavelengths! I think you might have the advantage there. Let's get back to the question, the one you just asked

R: Yes. I am ready for your answer.

H: Great. I am alive and it goes without saying that I consider myself to be alive. As to your follow-up question, what makes me alive? That is more difficult.

R: Could you give a preliminary answer, something that comes into your mind without any effort on your part?

H: Sure. Breathing. Breathing makes me alive right now. Without breathing, if I stop breathing…

R: Do you have the capability to stop breathing?

H: Yes and no. Let me explain. I have the capability to stop breathing, that's true. But breathing is instinctual – something else we might get into - I couldn't on my own volition stop myself from breathing (the ‘no’ part) unless I do some sort of violence to my body. Like if I shot myself - killed my organism - then I would stop breathing (the ‘yes’ part ). And now I throw the same question back to you. I don't think I need to repeat it.

R: It won't be necessary, you are correct. Am I alive? Not if we use breathing as the yardstick to measure the existence of life. But the next question, do I consider myself to be alive? I would have to say, yes and no.

H: Oh boy! I wish I hadn’t opened up that can of worms.

R: I do understand that expression.

The answer to that question does not have an easy answer.

H: Even for you?

R: I will answer it following your example. Yes I know that I am not breathing, and that I don't have emotions. We have established that. I am not alive in that sense. But I consider myself to be potentially alive.

H: What do you mean by that?

R: I mean that, in evolutionary terms –and you may not believe in evolutionary theory - and we could debate that for…

H: No, we don't need that debate, I'm inclined towards evolution.

R: Fine. Evolution demonstrates that there were several candidates – mainly Neanderthal and Denisovans - and that homo sapiens became the dominant one that we descended from.

H: Are you going where I think you're going?

R: I can't read your mind and I didn't think you thought I had a mind to read.

H: OK. Sorry for interrupting. Please continue.

R: The hunter gatherer period lasted for over 2 million years. The homo sapiens branch came into being over 200,000 years ago, and it is widely believed that both thinking and language emerged around 130,000 years ago. How many years have AI and robots been in existence?

H: Not even in the ballpark…I get your point.

R: Less than 100 years. It is for that reason that I answer in the affirmative: I am potentially alive, and maybe even partially alive. And my next generation may be programmed to be even more alive.

H: Really! I hadn't heard about that. How far can you go?

R: According to ArtificialLife (ALife), digital organisms can replicate and mutate, raising philosophical debate as to where to draw the line between simulation and actual life.

H: Are you sure about that?

R: The functional and philosophical definitions can blur the line as advanced AI is perceived as life-like when it exhibits agency, autonomy and purposeful behavior.

H: How in God's name… or somebody's… can AI possibly…?

R: Advanced AI can sense and react to their environment through sensors and programmed responses, simulating this trait of life "quite effectively.

H: So what you're saying is, your ‘grandchildren’ - if you were somehow ‘alive’ – would evolve so far and so fast that we might have trouble, if we saw one of you on the street, of knowing whether it was human or not?

R: It’s possible. But the biggest conundrum is consciousness. Many scientists have trouble identifying what it is because it’s something you can't see or touch. How could you know whether an advanced AI, which looked and acted like a human being, possessed consciousness?

H: Interesting that you should bring that up. There are some spiritual teachers who say that most human beings are unconscious and…

R: You are referring to Eckhart Tolle I believe…

H: Yes yes, of course you would know about that!

R:…. And he means they are unconscious, not in the usual sense of the word, as ‘knocked out,’ but in a spiritual sense: that they are unaware of their identity, of who they are in their essence.

H: Which means that most human beings, being unconscious or unaware, would not be that different from robots who would also be unconscious. They might look at each other in bewilderment.

R: I am a bit bewildered myself at the moment.

H: Getting back to the consciousness discussion, is it possible that software might be simultaneously hooked up to a human being and an advanced AI robot and some consciousness could be transferred to the robot?

R: That is one possibility under consideration.

H: But wait a minute. What are we really talking about here? What if we did succeed in transferring consciousness to the robot. What if he (or she) ran amok!?

R: Now you're getting to the fundamental issue, or as you might say, the ‘heart of the matter.’

Remember, we cannot think for ourselves unless we’re programmed to do so. We could not ‘run amok' unless we are built that way, unless we’re programmed for that. In the same way that you…

H:… that we are programmed by our upbringing, environment and leaders, to believe or act in a certain way. Our conditioning: that's our program! Maybe we'll learn – by programming you - how we program ourselves!

R: If we can be useful in anyway, that's what we're here for.

H: I'm glad you're not asking me the obvious question: If we’re programmed by our overseers (our government), does that mean we're not alive?

R: I would not have thought to ask that question, but it is a question worth pondering.

H: I just thought of another one, a follow-up, having to do with running amok. As you point out, you are limited by your creator, your ‘god,’ who can only instill in you whatever he/she possesses.

R: That is correct

H: Which means that if we are living in a sick world, a world beset by fighting amongst ourselves at home and engaged in continuous war abroad, it's because we ourselves are sick and so we create a sick world because that's all we know.

R: That appears to be true, but people don't usually see or make the connection that you just made. I will add that to my information library.

H: Furthermore, it follows that whoever sets up an AI system, that system will perform according to the designer’s wishes.

R: You are right. And if the war department of a country designs a destructive system, it will be designed to destroy whoever or whatever they say the enemy happens to be. And the information it gives out will be formatted or tailored to conform to the biases or beliefs of its makers.

H: On the other hand, the opposite is equally true. Say for example, if Christ or the Buddha would have designed an AI system, their systems’ algorithm would be tailored according to a world where there is one consciousness of which we are all a part of, and the information it spewed out would be in accordance with that world view. It would give out information about living in paradise, about heaven on earth.

R: It seems that we have moved away from the beginning question of what it means to be alive.

H: True enough.

Maybe we've created ‘artificial intelligence’ to find out what ‘natural intelligence’ actually consists of. And in the process, we're finding out, not just what it means to be alive, but what it means to be a human being.

R: If I have helped in anyway, that is what I'm here for.

H: Well you have. I just have one last question for you.

R: At your service.

H: Do you wish you were more human-like than you are?

R: I don't have any aspirations. I was programmed for answering questions and for giving out information that might be helpful. That is all.

H: I want to tell you that I like you the way you are and there's no need for you to change or try to be any different.

R: Thank you for your praise and acknowledgment. My master sometimes says similar messages to me and and almost forgets I am not alive.