Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence 2025
Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence 2025
Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith
MAP, USI, Lugano, Spring 2025
Background
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the subfield of Computer Science devoted to developing programs that enable computers to display behavior that can (broadly) be characterized as intelligent. On the strong version, the ultimate goal of AI is to create what is called General Artificial Intelligence (AGI), by which is meant an artificial system that is as intelligent as a human being.
Since its inception in the middle of the last century AI has enjoyed repeated cycles of enthusiasm and disappointment (AI summers and winters). Recent successes of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) have opened a new era popularization of AI. For the first time, AI tools have been created which are immediately available to the wider population, who for the first time can have real hands-on experience of what AI can do.
These developments in AI open up a series of questions such as:
- Will the powers of AI continue to grow in the future, and if so will they ever reach the point where they can be said to have intelligence equivalent to or greater than that of a human being?
- Could we ever reach the point where we can accept the thesis that an AI system could have something like consciousness or sentience?
- Could we reach the point where an AI system could be said to behave ethically, or to have responsibility for its actions.
- Can quantum computers enable a stronger AI than what we have today?
We will describe in detail how stochastic AI work, and consider these and a series of other questions at the borderlines of philosophy and AI. The class will close with presentations of papers on relevant topics given by students.
Some of the material for this class is derived from our book
and from the companion volume
- Symposium on Why Machines Will Never Rule the World — Guest editor, Janna Hastings, University of Zurich
which appeared as a special issue of the public access journal Cosmos + Taxis in early 2024.
Faculty
Jobst Landgrebe is the founder and CEO of Cognotekt, GmBH, an AI company based in Cologne specialised in the design and implementation of holistic AI solutions. He has 20 years experience in the AI field, 8 years as a management consultant and software architect. He has also worked as a physician and mathematician, and he views AI itself -- to the extent that it is not an elaborate hype -- as a branch of applied mathematics. CUrrently his primary focus is in the biomathematics of cancer.
Barry Smith is one of the world's most widely cited philosophers. He has contributed primarily to the field of applied ontology, which means applying philosophical ideas derived from analytical metaphysics to the concrete practical problems which arise where attempts are made to compare or combine heterogeneous bodies of data.
Topics treated in 2024
- The Glory and the Misery of ChatGPT
- What is AI? How does it work? What are its limits?
- What is intelligence. Can a machine be intelligent?
- Capabilities, or: What do IQ tests measure?
- The human brain and the theory of complex systems
- Can an Artificial Intelligence act? What is agency?
- AI and economic planning
- The ontology of physics
- AI and the Replication Problem
Course Description
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the subfield of Computer Science devoted to developing programs that enable computers to display behavior that can (broadly) be characterized as intelligent. On the strong version, the ultimate goal of AI is to create an artificial system that is as intelligent as a human being. Recent striking successes such as AlphaFold have convinced many not only that this objective is obtainable but also that in a not too distant future machines will become even more intelligent than human beings.
The actual and possible developments in AI open up a series of striking questions such as:
- Can a computer have a conscious mind?
- Can a computer have desires, a will, and emotions?
- Can a computer have responsibility for its behavior
- Would machine intelligence, if there is such a thing, be something comparable to human intelligence or something quite different?
In addition, new developments in the AI field make it possible for us to consider a series of philosophical questions in a new light, including:
- Could a machine have something like a personal identity? Would I really survive if the contents of my brain were uploaded to the cloud?
- What is it for a human to behave in an ethical manner? (Could there be something like machine ethics? Could machines used in fighting wars be programmed to behave ethically?)
- What is a meaningful life? If routine, meaningless work in the future is performed entirely by machines, will this make possible new sorts of meaningful lives on the part of humans?
After introducing the relevant ideas and tools from both AI and philosophy, all the aforementioned questions will be thoroughly addressed in class discussions. The class will close with presentations of papers on relevant topics given by students.
Grading
- Essay with presentation: 80%
- Essay with no presentation: 95%
- Presentation: 15%
- Class Participation 5%
Draft Schedule
Monday, February 17 (14:30-17:15)
An introduction to the course
Impact of philosophy on AI
Impact of AI on philosophy, and on science in general
Tuesday February 18 (09:30-12:15)
TESCREALISM, or: why AI gods are so passionate about creating Artificial General Intelligence
Wednesday, February 19 (13:30 - 16:15)
Can AI solve physics?
Thursday, February 20 (9:30 - 12:15)
Can a machine be consciousness?
Monday, April 28 (14:30 - 17:30)
Explicit, implicit, practical, personal and tacit knowledge
Tuesday, April 29 (13:30 - 16:30)
Wednesday April 30 (13:30 - 16:30)
Can a machine be creative?
Friday May 2 (13:30-16:30) Student Presentations and Concluding Survey
Background Material
An Introduction to AI for Philosophers
(AI experts are invited to criticize what I have to say in this talk)
An Introduction to Philosophy for Computer Scientists
(Philosophers are invited to criticize what I have to say in this talk)
