[Alright, well, guess we're doing this. Quentin was trying to be vague, but at this point Root would have to be stupid to not figure out... certain things about his powers, and Root isn't stupid. So might as well come clean now.]
pulling out the searle on me, huh? a classic.
okay, riddle me this: how do you know you, the "real person" in this little thought experiment, determine what it means to truly understand chinese? say you're fluent in french. you're processing sounds or shapes that have been given arbitrary but commonly accepted meaning (words), and you know the commonly accepted meaning because you've acquired the dataset necessary to do so (vocabulary, grammar). sure, your brain uses a more advanced algorithm than your average supercomputer, but it's still an algorithm.
the real difference between "computers" and "people" is pretty much anybody can see the algorithms computers use. some of them, like you, can read the code, rewrite it, change directives, all that jazz. that makes it feel logical. understandable. you know how it works, and there's safety in that. perfectly reasonable. but telepaths? we see the algorithms in what you would call "people." in any system that works similarly enough to the standard definition of a living brain, actually. we can't not see it.
in short, A.I. don't feel like people to you because you can control them. and that's the tea, sis.
oh, and side note: i'm killer at charades. [He may or may not cheat at charades. Spoilers: he definitely cheats at charades.]
no subject
pulling out the searle on me, huh? a classic.
okay, riddle me this: how do you know you, the "real person" in this little thought experiment, determine what it means to truly understand chinese? say you're fluent in french. you're processing sounds or shapes that have been given arbitrary but commonly accepted meaning (words), and you know the commonly accepted meaning because you've acquired the dataset necessary to do so (vocabulary, grammar). sure, your brain uses a more advanced algorithm than your average supercomputer, but it's still an algorithm.
the real difference between "computers" and "people" is pretty much anybody can see the algorithms computers use. some of them, like you, can read the code, rewrite it, change directives, all that jazz. that makes it feel logical. understandable. you know how it works, and there's safety in that. perfectly reasonable. but telepaths? we see the algorithms in what you would call "people." in any system that works similarly enough to the standard definition of a living brain, actually. we can't not see it.
in short, A.I. don't feel like people to you because you can control them. and that's the tea, sis.
oh, and side note: i'm killer at charades. [He may or may not cheat at charades.
Spoilers: he definitely cheats at charades.]