From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Tue Apr  7 23:24:31 EDT 1992
Article 4959 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: SHRDLU's mind
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <6737@pkmab.se> <1992Apr5.210553.11966@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Apr7.203327.516@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:33:27 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.023638.518@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>Kristoffer Eriksson:
>>Surely, no-one has suggested that SHRDLU is advanced enough to have a mind?
>
>Christopher Green:
>>Under strong AI, one would be committed to such a view. Surely, if McCarthy
>>believes is thermostat has beliefs, he believes that SHRDLU does. Same
>>goes for any other thorough-going functionalists. Right Dave...?
>>
>
>  I think I'm a backer of strong AI, but I don't believe that
>mind is an all-or-nothing concept.  Minds come in varying degrees
>of sophistication.  The essential ingredients are a picture of
>the world, the ability to use it to accomplish goals, and some
>ability to communicate.  SHRDLU has all of these things (though
>its picture is actually of an "imagined" world), so I see no
>reason not to grant it a mind, albeit a primitive one.

OK, so what are the moral consequences of this belief?  

- michael 


