A critique of artificial intelligence

Abstract

The question concerning machines‟ intelligence or mindedness has become topical issue in some disciplines. The focus in this research is on philosophic inquiry into the claim widely current in our time that machines are intelligent. The study introduces the debate and presents some definitions of artificial intelligence as a starting point.Then it traces the route to the rise of this theory in the 20th century and presents its basic claims. After that, it presents the arguments by some proponents of artificial intelligence (such as Alan Turing and John Pollock) to support the claim that machines are intelligent and that man is reducible to machine. The research also advances some arguments, among which are those of John Searle and Oladele Abiodun Balogun, against the claims that machines can be intelligent or even more intelligent than human or that humans are reducible to automata. It argues that in a strict philosophical sense, intelligence cannot be attributed to machines since any intelligence any machine seems to demonstrate is not more than mere programming built into it. It argues that the output of the machines is not a sufficient criterion to ascribe to them any intelligence. This study presents the criterion of the mental as necessary or sufficient conditions for mental attribution to further buttress the distinction between man and automata. Key Words: Cybernetics, Artificial intelligence, automata, virtual reality, consciousness, mind, the criterion of the mental

Key Words: Cybernetics, Artificial intelligence, automata, virtual reality, consciousness, mind, the criterion of the mental