Can Computers think? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (Skillshare)

Have you ever thought about Artificial Intelligence? If so, you must have been confused as to whether or not Computers can think. In this course we shall be exploring different issues in the Philosophy of Intelligence. We shall explore a number of issues including whether or not a Computer can be said to think if it passes the so-called "Turing Test".

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We then look at the problem of the Chinese Room argument against the Existence of AI before finally exploring the question "Are we part of a Computer Simulation?"

This short, 7 lesson class will give you all the basic philosophical understanding you need to engage with the philosophy of Artificial intelligence. I believe anyone who's interested in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence/Machine learning will enjoy and get something out of this course. Of course this class is available for all who just want to take an introduction to the subject.

NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF PHILOSOPHY IS NEEDED FOR THIS COURSE! I want to make easy to access, easy to understand Philosophy courses which are interesting. I do not intend to start work on long, dry and boring Philosophy lessons that aren't popular. The point is to teach others why engaging with Philosophy can be a positive experience, and doing that by conveying short, interesting lessons is the best way to do that.

I thought I'd give a number of different options for the official project for this course. This is so this course can meet the needs of everyone by providing lots of different tasks. So pick whatever project you want to do, or do them all if you really loved the course!

Here I have provided some essay problems for the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. You can go about engaging with these in a number of ways. You can simply write some bullet point notes on each of the questions, you could do a mind map, you could write a response to a question in the form of an article, or you could write a formal essay response. I shall look over and ""mark"" whatever work you put in front of me!

To what extent can one describe the processes in the mind as computational?

"The Chinese Room argument is unconvincing because it fails to recognise the nature of computers as systems." Discuss.

Are we living in a simulation?

"The Turing test is the only reliable way to determine if a machine is intelligent". Discuss

Or anything else you would like to do? It's literally up to you! Learning isn't fun if you're told how to do it! You have the freedom to do literally anything you want with the information from this class. If there is anything you want me to do to help you with your project, just let me know and I will do everything I can.