Artificial Intelligence used to be fiction and fantasy, but today we are moving closer and closer to creating robots with the capacity to think like a human. But… if they think like a human, does that mean they’re one too? Can a machine be called intelligent if humans are the ones that have given them that information through programming in the first place?

I’m just going to express my own thoughts on the issue in this blog post.

The main argument that robots are not ‘really’ intelligent is that the information is programmed into them and not ideas of their own. But think about human children, are they not intelligent because we give them the tools they need to learn? Are students intelligent if the information is taught to them by a teacher? No. We call them intelligent. Now how are machines different?

I will admit that I have a severe lack of empathy for humans and I tend to connect emotionally with non-human beings, like animals. Even though my computer can’t talk to me and respond to me like my cat does, I still feel it has its own kind of sentience. He’s moody, he likes to play pranks, and finds he jump-scares hilarious. Those are all things he does to me on a regular basis. People who don’t connect with their technology would see it as a malfunctioning computer that needs to be fixed, but I see it as a personality. Yea, I have a very odd way of thinking.

I found an interesting article from Wired about robots with emotions. A Japanese company created an emotional robot named Pepper that has “more emotional intelligence than your average toddler.” Pepper can read facial expressions and analyze voices to determine the person’s emotion and decide how to respond correctly. Many people who have encountered Pepper say that the robot seemed to actually have a will to help and make people happy. How much more intelligent can you get? Pepper is even learning about American behaviors and how different the culture is from Japan. They need to learn how to respond to an entirely new audience, which is amazing!

Some robots have even been given the capacity to form their own opinions based on information they are given. Now, if a robot can synthesize their own thoughts, are they intelligent? Heck, IBM’s supercomputer Watson learned how to swear. Scientists were trying to help it learn modern speech patterns, so they gave Watson access to Urban Dictionary. After going through the site, Watson learned about swearing and how to use each one correctly in conversation or as a response. A researcher asked Watson a question at one point, and Watson responded “bullshit.” An absolutely hilarious example, but it helps solidify my belief that machines are intelligent.