Week 6 | S.H.A.M.E | Turing & Kurzweil readings

The first subject that was discussed in this week’s group discussion was the differences between two texts. Kurzweil is interested in how the brain thinks (which would require defining what thinking even is), whereas Turing, believing this question to be fundamentally unprovable, is more concerned with the practical, and provable, question of whether a computer can appear to be thinking. Both approaches are interesting and in our opinion can be considered either together or apart, that is they are not mutually exclusive but consider different parts of the question of artificial intelligence. At its core many elements of the question of artificial intelligence are philosophical and subjective rather than objectively provable scientific fact. For this reason, like with other areas of philosophy, it is important to learn about various perspectives from prominent thinkers, but the final answer can only be a personal one.