Artificial Intelligence: Brains, Minds, and Machines

We are on the verge of constructing artificial systems that will rival or surpass human minds in many ways. The current world champions in chess, go, and Jeopardy are all AI-powered computers. Do these devices think? How, if at all, are they different from human minds in terms of producing intelligent behavior? Are there different kinds of intelligence? Indeed, what is intelligence and what is it to be an intelligent system? Artificial Intelligence also raises new and urgent ethical questions. How can we make sure that AI systems will respect our ethical principles when they make decisions at speeds mere humans can’t achieve or on the basis of reasoning that mere human can't comprehend? Should we think of AI devices merely as sophisticated machines? Or are they a new form of life? What legal and moral rights, if any, should we grant them? This course will introduce students to philosophical frameworks for thinking about these issues in order to achieve a deeper theoretical and practical understanding of AI.