"AI cannot have experiences"

Blazing Reader,

In last week's episode of Just Right, "The artificial debate about Artificial Intelligence (AI)," host Bob Metz said:

AI cannot have experiences. AI could never "appreciate" anything. It would be incapable of appreciation — especially in the area of things like beauty, sexuality, art, music, literature, purpose in life, preferences, likes and dislikes, colour, sound, values, independence, free will, pain, pleasure, friendship, fear, love and, of course, family and children. And it's the emotional and biological dimensions of humanity that no AI could ever experience.

In my novel, All the Humans Are Sleeping, the same philosophical argument is sprinkled throughout the story. For example, this bit from "Chapter 9.01: The Robot on the Top of the Mountain":

In the first year of [the robot's] solitude — after the Stevens had been connected to the Metaverse — Domestico had read every available piece of human literature. He was particularly inspired by the poems of Walt Whitman and decided he should become a poet. However, to master human poetry he had concluded it was necessary to mimic human habits, customs and movements.

Not that humans had been moving much.

All the more reason why he should move.

That thought inspired his 43,398,985th poem, which he tapped on the screen:

May their ways,
Like ripples on a pond,
Survive the passing of their flesh,
And live beyond.

Another clap of thunder. That poem was so bad, Domestico realized, that the thunder could only be the heckling of the gods.

Get a free sample of the first 26 chapters (in ebook and audiobook format) at: AllTheHumansAreSleeping.com

John C.A. Manley

PS You can listen to last week's Just Right episode on the "artificial debate about Artificial Intelligence (AI)" at Just Right Media (highly recommended).

PPS And while you're there, you can listen to the episode all about All The Humans Are Sleeping: Episode #893: Just Sleeping? From artificial intelligence to artificial life with John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.