Philosophy of AI

3 units

Under what conditions can we call computational systems intelligent? Are human brains computers? Can robots be moral agents? Are there ethical limitations to the development of advanced computational systems? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing research program. The field of AI is dedicated to building artificial systems capable of completing intelligent tasks. For example, AI systems can have genuine seeming conversations with humans. Furthermore, AI systems can beat human chess players, write a poem, drive a car and write software code. As AI becomes increasingly intertwined with daily life, a variety of important philosophical and ethical questions emerge. In this course, students will become familiar with these questions and have the opportunity to discuss and critically evaluate how philosophers have addressed them. The readings for this class fall into three broad categories: the nature of computation, to what extent computational systems can be considered intelligent and ethical questions regarding AI.