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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

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