Free will - even for robots

Author: McCarthy J.1

Source: Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, Volume 12, Number 3, 1 July 2000 , pp. 341-352(12)

Publisher: Taylor and Francis Ltd

Key:
Free Content - Free Content
New Content - New Content
Subscribed Content - Subscribed Content
Free Trial Content - Free Trial Content

Abstract:

Human free will is a product of evolution and contributes to the success of the human animal. Useful robots will also require free will of a similar kind, and we will have to design it into them. Free will is not an all-or-nothing thing. Some agents have more free will, or free will of different kinds, than others, and we will try to analyse this phenomenon. Our objectives are primarily technological, i.e. to study what aspects of free will can make robots more useful, and we will not try to console those who find determinism distressing. We distinguish between having choices and being conscious of these choices; both are important, even for robots, and consciousness of choices requires more structure in the agent than just having choices and is important for robots. Consciousness of free will is therefore not just an epiphenomenon of structure serving other purposes. Free will does not require a very complex system. Young children and rather simple computer systems can represent internally "I can, but I won"t" and behave accordingly. Naturally I hope this detailed design stance will help understand human free will. It takes the compatibilist philosophical position. There may be some readers interested in what the paper says about human free will and who are put off by logical formulas. The formulas are not important for the arguments about human free will; they are present for people contemplating AI systems using mathematical logic. They can skip the formulas, but the coherence of what remains is not absolutely guaranteed.

Keywords: FREE WILL; ROBOTS; AGENTS

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

The full text electronic article is available for purchase. You will be able to download the full text electronic article after payment.

$45.29 plus tax      Refund Policy

 

OR

Back to top

Key:
Free Content - Free Content
New Content - New Content
Subscribed Content - Subscribed Content
Free Trial Content - Free Trial Content
Share this item with others: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Page Help Click here for Page Help
Shopping cart
Tools
Sign in






Need to register?
Sign up here
Text size: A | A | A | A