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The Machine Conscience

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In today 's society, we use certain objects such as machines every single day to perform jobs and tasks that would require human intelligence and judgment. Artificial Intelligence allow machines to send information in a matter of seconds, regulate ground and air traffic, guide missiles, and can perform any human task, but what if machines are create more like humans in the near future. Would we welcome them into society as ‘one of the guys ' or would we discriminate their kind? The excerpt on Machine Consciousness by William Lycan argues the points for and against the human acceptance of an intelligent machine. To answer philosophical statements and questions on machine consciousness and it 's human acceptance, Lycan introduces Harry, …show more content…

The chemical composition of the anatomy of a machine also brings up the question of racial or ethnic prejudice. The people in this futuristic society have more complex issue with ethnicity of a being. Should society discriminate people by the color of their skin or the composition of their anatomy? In this case, most would probably discriminate the intelligent machines as a "thing" they are superior to. Superiority in this case does not come from color, but from composition. Humans would not accept the machines for several reasons. First of all, even though the machine has a programmed mind, it does not have a real conscience. This results in the inability to adapt to new situations. For example, if a humanoid was built to be a house maid and one day was ask to mow the lawn, it would be unable to because there is no program in their mind that gives them the information require to mow a lawn. One could program the most complex machine, that represents a person from head to toe, but its mind does not have the mental ability to mature or make exceptions to moral rules subconsciously, even if a program is create to randomly replicate human emotions and the maturity of the mind. Another reason humans wouldn 't accept machines is that computers are told what to do and they do not have spontaneity or a freedom a choice. A program can make the machines reactions and emotions erratic, but it can

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