Intentionality and artificial intelligence

Michael Lacewingenquiries@alevelphilosophy.co

.uk

Intentionality

• Mental states are ‘about’, or ‘directed onto’, something, e.g. belief about Paris, desire for chocolate.

• Intentionality has nothing to do with intentions.

• An Intentional mental state has Intentional content.

Intentional content

• Oedipus kills his father out of anger– Was Oedipus angry with his father? Yes, and no

• We always think of the world in a particular way– Do atmospherically formed crystals in

hexagonal form reflect all wavelengths of visible light?

– Call this ‘aspectual shape’.

• Intentional object: the thing we think about• Intentional content: object + shape

Reduction

• How can anything physical have Intentionality?– Physical states and properties, e.g. chemical

ones, are never ‘about’ anything

• Functionalism: Intentionality is a causal-functional property– A belief is about dogs because it is caused by

dogs and causes behaviour towards dogs.– But a cloud is caused by water evaporating from

the sea; yet the cloud isn’t about the sea.

Functional accounts

• Beliefs carry information about the world.– Natural states do this, e.g. smoke carries

information about fire.

• But beliefs can be mistaken, smoke cannot.• The function of beliefs is to represent the

world truly.– Many natural things can malfunction.– Mistake = malfunction

• Stomachs can malfunction, but still aren’t ‘about’ food.

The Chinese Room

• Is artificial intelligence intelligent? Searle: only if Intentionality could be reduced to functions

One response

• The issue is the type of interaction with the world:– Replace the person by a computer.– Put the computer inside a robot.– Connect up a visual input and audio

output.– The robot can now ‘name’ objects in

Chinese.– Does the robot understand Chinese?

Consciousness and aspect

• Searle: the robot still doesn’t understand, but ‘simulates’ understanding

• To understand, we need consciousness– Aspectual shape is essential to genuine

Intentionality– Only consciousness provides aspectual

shape (point of view)