Skip to main content

Sentience vs Sapience

 



At what point will computers become sentient? At what point will they become sapient? What’s the difference?

Webster’s defines sentient as “1: Responsiveness to or conscious of sense impressions. 2: Aware. 3: Finely sensitive in perception or feelings”.

Webster’s defines sapient as “possessing or expressing great sagacity” (wisdom).

Science fiction stories speculate about humanity meeting a sentient or a sapient species. Some stories use the two terms interchangeably, but they are quite different. A sentient species is one that is aware of their environment. They are sensitive to their surroundings and other organisms around them. As a standard, this is not high bar. There are even plants that can sense their surroundings and react accordingly. They could be called sentient.

Meeting alien life that is sapient is where things get interesting. This is where things like the “Prime Directive” in Star Trek would come into play. The idea that sapient life should be allowed to evolve without interference from the more advanced civilizations seems like a reasonable rule. The scientific name of our species would indicate that we are sapient. Homo sapiens: Homo meaning Man and sapiens meaning wise. There are other extinct species of the genus Homo: Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, but the one that survived is Homo sapiens: the wise humans (well, that’s debatable). It is all well and good for us to call ourselves wise, but this brings up a problem. Alien life is, well, alien. We have our own idea about what wisdom is, that is, we think it’s like us. But what if it is not like us. Will we recognize wisdom if it is radically different?

The same could be said of artificial intelligence. We have the Turing Test, a hypothetical test designed by computer legend Alan Turing. In this test, a person would be in a blind communication with two others, one human and one machine. If the person could not reliably tell which one was the machine, the machine would then have passed the test. But what does that really tell us? It might just tell us that this machine could imitate humans. Is that sapience? Like the alien, machine intelligence might develop in a way so foreign to us (or so advanced) as to be unrecognizable. The fact that humans designed it might not make a difference. It seems to me after attaining a certain level of complexity, one has to assume that artificial intelligence will evolve just like life evolves, that is, unpredictably (although much faster).

What makes a being (natural or machine) a person? Is it sapience? Is it self-awareness? Webster’s notwithstanding, do we really even know what those terms mean when we are talking about something alien to ourselves? Advanced artificial intelligence won’t think like we do and therefore won’t act like we expect.  We and AI will not be able to conceive of ourselves, the world, or each other in the same way. If the day ever comes when artificial intelligence exterminates the human race, it won’t be because the machines are evil. It will likely just be a simple misunderstanding.

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bureaucrats

  I am one of those nameless, faceless bureaucrats. Yes, that is my job. Though I actually have a name; I even am rumored to have a face. Bureau is the French word for desk, so you could say bureaucrats are “desk people.” In short, I work for the government. I sometimes have to deliver unpleasant news to a taxpayer. I sometimes have to tell them that the deed they recorded won’t work and they will have to record another one with corrections. Or we can’t process their deed until they pay their taxes. I can understand why some of these things upset people. The thing is, we don’t decide these things. It is not the bureaucrats that make the laws. The legislature writes the laws. We are required to follow the law.   If you are going to get mad at someone, get mad at the legislature. Or maybe get mad at the voters who voted the legislature in (That’s you, by the way). The same thing happens when the voters vote in a new district, or vote for a bond, or a new operating levy for an ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Telephonicus domesticus

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone from 1877 bears about as much similarity to the modern smart phone as an abacus bears to a PC or Mac. There are just about as many leaps in technology in both cases. It’s funny how a major jump in technology happens (like the actual invention of the phone). Then there are some refinements over a few years or decades until it gets to a useful stable form. Then it stays virtually the same for many years with only minor innovations. The telephone was virtually unchanged from sometime before I was born until I was about forty. Push-buttons were replacing the rotary dial, but that was about it. (Isn’t it interesting though that when we call someone, we still call it “dialing?” I have never seen a dial on a cell phone.) Cell phones were introduced and (once they became cheap enough) they changed the way we phone each other. New advancements followed soon after, texting and then smart phones. Personal computers were also becoming commonplace and wer...
Post a Comment
Read more