Philosophy of Mind Seminar (Friday - Week 7, TT24)

Abstract: When confronted with what we will call behaviorally intelligent robots or aliens, a particular pair of default attitudes is justified. Toward aliens, the appropriate default attitude is to attribute consciousness.  We defend this view on broadly Copernican grounds.  According to the cosmological principle of Copernican mediocrity, we do not occupy any special position in the universe.  Copernican mediocrity, we argue, would be violated if, among all the behaviorally intelligent entities that have presumably evolved in the universe, we humans are among the rare few who also happen to be conscious, while the rest are nonconscious “zombies”.  Toward behaviorally intelligent robots, the appropriate default attitude is skepticism or uncertainty about their consciousness.  We defend this view with a mimicry argument.  Robots that behave in ways we associate with consciousness are normally designed or selected primarily to mimic consciousness.  While the effective mimicry of consciousness might in some cases require corresponding consciousness beneath, there’s no compelling reason to think this is generally so.  Thus, we will argue, the alien and robot cases are asymmetric.  Even confronted with similarly intelligent behavior, it's reasonable to be more skeptical of robot than of alien consciousness.