Can a Robot Have Free Will?

[Evgenii Rudnyi]

Keith Douglas Farnsworth. Can a Robot Have Free Will? Entropy 19, no. 5
(2017): 237.

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/19/5/237

"Using insights from cybernetics and an information-based understanding
of biological systems, a precise, scientifically inspired, definition of
free-will is offered and the essential requirements for an agent to
possess it in principle are set out."

"The only systems known to meet all these criteria are living organisms,
not just humans, but a wide range of organisms. The main impediment to
free-will in present-day artificial robots, is their lack of being a
Kantian whole. Consciousness does not seem to be a requirement and the
minimum complexity for a free-will system may be quite low and include
relatively simple life-forms that are at least able to learn."

[Brent Meeker]

I agree with their analysis.  They have arrived at the same conclusion
as Hume.

" Here the problem is explained in the more concrete and formal terms of
fixed points (goals) in objective functions. The concept is made
sufficiently specific to quantify (as nestedness) and used to conclude
that no agent can be ultimately free willed in the strong source-theory
sense of being ultimately responsible. "

Brent
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never
pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
    --- David Hume

[John Clark]

​ ​

Keith Douglas Farnsworth. Can a Robot Have Free Will? Entropy 19, no. 5 (2017): 237.

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/19/5/237

​> ​

a precise, scientifically inspired, definition of free-will is offered and the essential requirements for an agent to possess it in principle are set out. These are: (a) there must be a self to self-determine; 

​A ​

cuckoo clock

​ is self determined, its internal clockwork determines what it will do.   ​

(b) there must be a non-zero probability of more than one option being enacted;

 

​There is more than one state a ​

roulette wheel

​ or a radioactive atom could end up in.​

 

​> ​

 there must be an internal means of choosing among options (which is not merely random, 

You can't have it both ways, either the choice was determined by cause and effect and it

​'s​

a cuckoo clock

​ 

or it was not and therefore

​is ​

a random roulette wheel

​.​

​So tell me what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean and I'll tell you if robots can have free will or not. 

 ​John K Clark​

 

 

[Brent Meeker]

It means a decision process leading to action which is not predictable and is difficult to influence by external motivations, so that it shows consistency of purpose and intelligence in achieving it.

Brent
P.S. robots can have it.

[John Clark]

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 10:34 PM, Brent Meeker <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

​> ​

It

​[free will] ​

means a decision process

Like the internal mechanism of a

​ ​

cuckoo clock

​ ​

deciding to send it's little bird out every hour.  But, I hear you say, the clock didn't make a decision. What is a decision? A choice made of your own free will. And what is free will? The ability to make a choice.
And round and round we go.

 

​> ​

leading to action which is not predictable

Like a

​ ​

roulette wheel or a radioactive ato

​m​

.

​> ​

and is difficult to influence by external motivations,

There is a technical term for a being with that property, its called "stupid".

​ ​

A beings actions by definition take place in the external world, if the beings planned actions are not changed by new information about that external

​world​

 coming to it through its sense organs then

​ ​

that being is stupid. 

 

​> ​

so that it shows consistency of purpose and intelligence in achieving it.

​Like the computer program AlphaGo ​showed 2 months 

 

​ago.

So can a robot have free will? I said it before I'll say it again, tell me what the hell "free will" is suposed to mean and I'll tell you if a robot can have free will.

​> ​

P.S. robots can have it.

​Maybe, it depends on what "it" is.​

 

 John K Clark​

 

Brent
P.S. robots can have it.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 20 Feb 2018, at 04:11, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

​ ​

Keith Douglas Farnsworth. Can a Robot Have Free Will? Entropy 19, no. 5 (2017): 237.

http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/19/5/237

​> ​

a precise, scientifically inspired, definition of free-will is offered and the essential requirements for an agent to possess it in principle are set out. These are: (a) there must be a self to self-determine; 

​A ​

cuckoo clock

​ is self determined, its internal clockwork determines what it will do.   ​

A cuckoo clock is determined, by that condition. To be self-determined you need a representation of the self, so that ints internal clockworks determines that its internal clockworks determines what it will do.

You need a cuckoo clock which can mimic itself, like a universal cuckoo clock (like Babbage’s machine!).

(b) there must be a non-zero probability of more than one option being enacted;

 

​There is more than one state a ​

roulette wheel

​ or a radioactive atom could end up in.​

 

​> ​

 there must be an internal means of choosing among options (which is not merely random, 

You can't have it both ways, either the choice was determined by cause and effect and it

​'s​

a cuckoo clock

​ 

or it was not and therefore

​is ​

a random roulette wheel

​.​

Or its is something in between, like a self-observing machine hesitating between different way to solve its problem at hand, and pondering on that very matter, for example.

​So tell me what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean and I'll tell you if robots can have free will or not. 

Free will is the ability to zoom where you want on f(z) = z^n + c, with n equal to the number you want, like 4, with its cute pentagonal jonction points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqkMu4zn34&index=17

Bruno

 ​John K Clark​

 

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com.

[John Clark]

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 3:12 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

 

​> ​

To be self-determined you need a representation of the self

That's is exactly how AlphaGo became the best GO player on this planet. When it was learning It was playing against itself, that is to so after it made a move it in effect asked itself "if I was my opponent how would I respond to the move I just made?". After doing this millions of times it became very very good at predicting what a real opponent was likely to do and learn how to exploit its weaknesses.    ​

 

​> ​

You need a cuckoo clock which can mimic itself,

I think a

​ 

cuckoo clock

​ 

mimics a

​ 

cuckoo clock

​ 

rather well.

​>​>

You can't have it both ways, either the choice was determined by

​ 

cause and effect and it

​ i

s

​ 

a cuckoo clock

​ 

 or it was not and therefore

​ ​

 is

​ 

a random roulette wheel

​ 

​> ​

Or its is something in between, like a self-observing machine hesitating between different way to solve its problem at hand, and pondering on that very matter, for example.

​But at the end of all that pondering a decision was reached, and there was either a reason for reaching that decision or there way not a reason for reaching that decision. It's irrelevant if the reason for it came from

self-observation

​ or from somewhere else, if there was a reason for the decision then its deterministic.

 

​>> ​

​So tell me what the hell "free will" is supposed to mean and I'll tell you if robots can have free will or not. 

​> ​

Free will is the ability to zoom where you want on

​ .............

Want? If you did what you did because you wanted to then you did it for a reason, there was a cause. So if you have free will

​then ​

so does a cuckoo clock

​.

John K Clark​

. 

[Brent Meeker]

I told you what I thought "it" is.  So where's you (non-snarky) answer?

Brent

[John Clark]

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 9:00 PM, Brent Meeker <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

 

​> ​

So where's you (non-snarky) answer?

That depends on what the question is.

John K Clark