Artificial Intelligence and the Concept of “Human Thinking”

Abstract

The twentieth century may indeed be called the century of “scientific revolutions,” evidently, depending on how one understands the notion of “revolution.” Yet, apart from the debate on terminology, advances in medicine, computer science, and communication technology have indeed been astounding. Even more remarkable are the revolutionary changes in computer science and information technology that have taken place in the first 16 years of the twenty-first century. In particular, one area that has experienced promising developments is the field of robotics and AI—Artificial Intelligence. The science of AI itself has been active for many decades now; at least ever since advances in computer programming have helped the fields of “robotics” achieve some promising results. In this context, a number of philosophers have raised the question of whether the human mind could be mirrored by a computer program. More specifically, can scientists replicate—via a computer program/robot—the mechanisms and operations that run the human brain? This debate has given birth to a number of collateral questions about the nature of human intelligence, self-awareness, and the phenomenon of consciousness. In other words, philosophers and scientists have been interested in knowing whether advances in science can produce an artificial mind, or the “mind” is a unique human entity that cannot be recreated. In this essay, we will review the issues of the debate on Artificial Intelligence and argue in favor of the view that the human mind is a far too complex and elusive entity for the claim of “complete reproduction” to be valid.