Connectionists: Sentient AI Survey Results

[Maria Hedblom]

Hi Jeff

That is a very interesting result.
I will ask my students (in the next year, holidays start now) the same
questions in a more explicit format (and not just as part of a classroom
discussion).

I guess, taking a more ethical perspective from the reasoning of the
students, there is an interesting mismatch between the answers of Q1 and
Q3.
If they are sentient, why not give them rights? And as a follow up to that,
perhaps the students should ask themselves what kind of rights they
should have / not have.

In regards to Q2, I must admit that I found this to be very low. I wonder
what the motivations of the students were/are.
Essentially, what were the ethical issues with endowing the AI with
sentience that the students used to reason with?
Are they thinking primarily from the perspective of the AI: that it would
be unfair to them. OR is it rather a human perspective in which we question
what consequences this has for humans?
Having looked into these topics as a researcher it is easy to find the
motivations for any answer, but it would be interesting to hear the
intuitions the students have without the "biased knowledge" of us
researchers.

Either way, it's very interesting!
Perhaps this is worth making as a more universal query to the students in
AI, philosophy and cognitive science classes. :)

Thanks for sharing!
Maria

Den ons 31 maj 2023 kl 09:22 skrev Jeffrey L Krichmar <jkrichma at uci.edu>:

> Dear Connectionists,
>
> I am teaching an undergraduate course on “AI in Culture and Media”. Most
> students are in our Cognitive Sciences and Psychology programs. Last week
> we had a discussion and debate on AI, Consciousness, and Machine Ethics.
> After the debate, around 70 students filled out a survey responding to
> these questions.
>
> Q1: Do you think it is possible to build conscious or sentient AI?     65%
> answered yes.
> Q2: Do you think we should build conscious or sentient AI?            22%
> answered yes
> Q3: Do you think AI should have rights?
>       54% answered yes
>
> I thought many of you would find this interesting.  And my students would
> like to hear your views on the topic.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Jeff Krichmar
> Department of Cognitive Sciences
> 2328 Social & Behavioral Sciences Gateway
> University of California, Irvine
> Irvine, CA 92697-5100
> jkrichma at uci.edu
> http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jkrichma
>
> https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/716394/neurorobotics-by-tiffany-j-hwu-and-jeffrey-l-krichmar/
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Maria M. Hedblom
www.mariamhedblom.com
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