AI Re: In Which Jung prewrites AtD's epigraph

[Matthew Cissell]

I am not a machine. Mechanistic metaphors to describe our species do not make our species a machine. Machines are not sentient (not yet).

I'm no expert on AI, but it seems like people like Dreyfuss and Searle (JS is no dualist) had a point about the importance of the concept of mind that was behind AI back then. Now Dan Zahavi has added something new to the subject by drawing on Merleau-Ponty's idea of embodiment to talk about embodied consciousness.
And a question: to what extent is the idea of singularity just a technophile version of some apocalyptic passage toward a utopian world that eliminates all the dichotomies and binaries that afflict us (echoes of Donna Haraway). No more problems of race or gender or identity with the Singularity!    
" the real question for humans is when we can manufacture machines to do everything  human's used to do, then what will human's do?" The question is, what humans are we talking about? Somehow I have trouble imagining the majority of people in Africa (for example) worrying about this situation. I mean they have trouble getting AIDS medication. 

I suspect I'll die without seeing the Singularity. Oh darn.

Ciao
MC Otis




________________________________
 From: Jude Bloom <jude at bloomradio.com>
To: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> 
Cc: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: In Which Jung prewritesAtD's epigraph
 
Why do we suppose that humans and machines will be different entities? Don't all the arrows seem to be pointing to a convergence?

Unless you're a kind of dualist, there are already sentient machines, that is, us.  ??


On Mar 16, 2012, at 12:14 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 
> 
> Still, as Pynchon's thoughts seem to imply, the real question for humans is when we can manufacture machines to do everything  human's used to do, then what will human's do? I guess fight over who programs the machines and where to get the energy without killing everything.  Always something fun to look forward to.  
> 
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