Can a Robot Decide to Lie?
24 March 2018 (Wall Street International)* — The Quibble Convention had been going on for over thirty years now, always with the same strict rules. The place was still the secondary room of the Royal Academy, which could sit only 25 people. It was in the form of a trial, with the Exponent and three Opponents. The Exponent would make his statement, no longer than one sentence, and the debate would begin.
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This time the exponent was Sir William Orchid, and people knew already what his statement would be. He stood up with the ring of the bell, looked at the small crowd and said:
-There cannot be any Turing test for consciousness.
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The Chairman, Sir John Stringmore, answered with a short dry smile.
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-Maybe, Sir, you would add a couple of clarifying sentences?
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-Ah, yes, well, only a few words. The Turing Test, as outlined much time ago, was invented to permit discrimination between a machine and a human being, on the basis of questions asked by a judge.
The latter does not know which is which, and if he is not able to notice a difference between the two answers, well, the inference is, that there is no intellectual difference between the man and the machine. The machine, or robot, as you want to call it, passed then the Turing test…
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-This is all very clear to all of us, Sir. -nodded the Chariman-We need perhaps an additional clarifying sentence from you…
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-Well…next is the notion of consciousness as a subjective experience. I know that I have consciousness, but there is no way for me to know whether you have consciousness. I may assume so, but there is no way for any observer to know about the consciousness of anybody else. It is the old story, pardon me if I say trivial things, that “my red” is only my red, and nobody else can access it.
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-Therefore, Sir?…
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-Therefore, is perfectly silly to ask questions about consciousness to anybody else, and doubly silly, if I may say so, to ask a machine.
The chairman made a small movement with the head, and when he spoke, his voice was a little harsh.
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-You know perfectly, Sir, that there are several Institutes for the study of consciousness in robots, ad that our global Government has invested several billion in Robotic Artificial Intelligence precisely in this field. Are you then implying that all this is a non-sense?
-Yes Sir, this is what I am implying.
There was a movement of discomfort in the room. The Chairman made a movement by the hand, so to impose silence, then he turned towards the person sitting in the far corner of the first raw, the First Opponent.
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-Doctor Zhang, you may talk now.
