Rwagen Wissen

rwagen Wissen

vorma s Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften (EuS) Streitforum fiir Erwagungsku : Herausgegeben von 0 Frank Benseleu, Bettina Blanck, Reinhard Keil, Werner Loh EWE , Jg. 2012009 Heft 2 20 Sonderdruck

Hauptartikel Robots a!zd TJzeology, Anne Foerst

Kritik Seliller Bringsjord, Joanna J. Bryson,Thoinas Christaller, Dirk Evers, Yiftach J. H. Fehige, Oliver Kriiger, Anne Kt111, Bernhard Lang, Mantlela Lenzen, Hironori Matsuzaki, Andreas Matthias, Hans-Dieter Mutschler,Jiirgen van Oorschot, Sal Restivo, Matt Rossano, Stefanie Schifer-Bossert, ~hristo~herScholtz, Thoinas T. Tabbert

Replik Anne Foerst

Hauptartikel Bildtrng und Perspektivitiit - Korztroversitat urzd Gzdoktrinationsverbot als Grundsatze vorz Bildutzg urzd Wissensclza$) Wolfgang Sander

Kritik Klaus Ahlheim, Carsten Biinger, Bernhard ClatzRen, Marcelo Dascal, Carl Deichmann, Joachiin Detjen, Heike Drygalla-Roy, Ludwig Duncker, Peter Gostmann, Benno Hafeneger, Peter Herdegen, Walter Herzog, Annette Kamn~ertons,Hanna I

Replik Wolfgang Sander

ANHANG

LUCIUS 7 ~LUCIUS- Erwigen Wissen Ethik Deliberation Knowledge Ethics

vormals / previously Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften (EuS) - Streitforum fiir Erwagungskultur

EWE 20 (2009) Heft 2 / Issue 2

INHALT CONTENT

DRITTE DISKUSSIONSEINHEIT 1 THIRD DISCUSSION UNIT

HAUPTARTIREL / MMNARTICLE Anne Foerst: Robots and Theology 181

KRITIK / CRITIQUE Selmer Bringsjord: But Perhaps Robots Are Essentially Non-Persons 193 Joanna J. Bryson: Building Persons is a Choice 195 Thomas Christaller: Why are humans religious animals and what could this mean to Artificial Intelligence and Robotics? 197 Dirk Evers: Humanoide Roboter als Mittel menschlicher Selbsterkenntnis? 199 Yiftach J. H. Fehige: It is good to be human. On thought experimenting with the perfect humanoid 201 Oliver Kriiger: Wie humanoid sind Roboter? 203 Anne Kull: Making to Learn to Be a Person 206 Bernhard Lang: So dachte ich auch - vor etwa vierzig Jahren 208 Manuela Lenzen: Ein Mensch ist doch etwas Besonderes 210 Hironori Matsuzaki: Roboter auf der schwierigen Suche nach Anerkennung und Nachstenliebe 2 12 Andreas Matthias: Robots, Theology and the Personhood of Nonhumans. A Critique 2 15 Hans-Dieter Mutschler: Liebe Deinen Roboter wie dich selbst - oder: Drei Griinde, weshalb Roboter keine Menschen sind 2 18 Jiirgen van Oorschot: Weniger ware mehr - oder eine immer noch anstehende Debatte zu Anthropologien 220 Sal Restivo: Robots, Theology, and the Sociological Cogito 222 Matt Rossano: Does Biology Matter? 224 Stefanie SchHfer-Bossert: Roboter und Anthropologie 225 Christopher Scholtz: Subjektsimulierende Maschinen als theologische Herausforderung 228 Thomas T. Tabbert: On Non-human Personhood 23 1

REPLIK / RESPONSE Anne Foerst: The Twofold Awareness of Personhood 232

VIERTE DISKUSSIONSEINHEIT/ FOURTH DISCUSSION UNIT

HA UPTARTIREL / MAlN ARTICLE Wolfgang Sander: Bildung und Perspektivitat -

Kontroversitat und Indoktrinationsverbot als Grundsatze von Bildung und Wissenschaft 239 '

KRITIK / CRITIQUE Klaus Ahlheim: Die Kirche im Dorf lassen. Ein nuchterner Blick auf den Beutelsbacher Konsens 248 Carsten Biinger: Die Grenzen der Perspektive 250 Bernhard ClauDen: Kontroversitat und Multiperspektivitat als Politikum. Defizite und Konsequenzen einer Fundierung indoktrinationsfreier Bildung diesseits und jenseits konstruktivistischer Idealismen 252 EWE 20(2009)2 Kritik 1 Critique

Endnotes Change Detection. (Stephen Mitroff, Daniel Simons, Steven Franconery). Journal of Experimental Psychology / Human Perception & Performance 1 For a more in-depth discussion see my articles "Artificial Intelligence 2814 Aug 2002,798-816. I. Scientific", "ArtScial Intelligence III. Theological", ''Artificial Life", in: 26 The following experiments are described in Cliff Nass and Byron 'RGG (Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart), vol. 1. Reeves. "The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, 2 While I agree that it is problematic to translate JHWH simply with and New Media Like Real People and Places". New York: Cambridge God, I will do so nonetheless. In recent years, the language of God, Godself University Press, 1996. etc. and the replacement of any personal pronoun referring to JHWH with 27 Olivier Pascalis, Michelle de Haan, Charles A. Neslon. "Is Face "God" has become well established among feminist theologians to avoid Processing Species-Specific During the First Year of Life?" Science, 296, assigning a gender to JHWH. I will follow this tradition. May 2002,1321-1323. 3 See Rabbi B.Z. Bokser, "The Philosophy of Rabbi Judah Low of 28 Robin Dunbar. "Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. Prague", New York: Philosophical Library, 1954. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. 4 See S. Schroer, T. Staubli, "Die Korpersymbolik der Bibel", Darmstadt: 29 E.A. Feigenbaum, P. McCorduck. "The Fifth Generation: Artificial Primus Verlag, 1'998. Intelligence and Japan's Computer Challenge to the World", Reading: 5 I am referring mostly to his ''systematic Theology". Vol. 11, Chicago: Addison-Wesley, 1983. University of Chicago Press, 1957. 30 Cynthia Breazeal, "Sociable Robots". MIT-Press, Cambridge 2002. 6 Bonaventure, "Itinerarium Mentis In Deum", St. Bonaventure: The 3 1 For a discussion of the connection between the ancient golem traditions Franciscan Institute Press, 1956. and modem A1 see Gershom Scholem, "The Golem of Prague and the 7 See S.F. Gilbert, "Congenital Human Baculum Deficiency", American Golem of Rehovoth", Commentary, January 1966,62-65, and Harvey Cox, Jozrrnal of Medical Genetics 101 (2001): 284-285. Anne Foerst, "Religion and Technology: ANew Phase", Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society. 17 (2-3): 53-60. 8 The following reflections come from H. Seebass: Hebraisch- Aramaisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament. 32 Unpublished dissertation research of the team of Cynthia Breazeal at the M.I.T. Media-Lab. See http://web.media.mit.edu/-cynthiabl 9 See Claus Westermann, 1. Mose vol. 1, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neunkirchener Verlag, 1986. 33 For one of the most thorough discussions of the philosophical discussion of Personhood see Robert Spaemann, "Personen: Versuche uber den 10 For the history of the covenant see H.-J. Hermisson, "Bund und Unterschied zwischen 'etwas' und 'jemand'". Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1996. Erwahluna", H.J. Boecker, H.-J. Hermisson, J.M. Schmidt, L. Schmidt (Eds.), ~lt'ksTestament, ~eukirchen-vluyn:Neukirchener verlag, 1989, p. 34 Most famous representative of this understanding of personhood is 222-243. the Australian philosopher Peter Singer. His most comprehensive work is "Practical Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 11 The phenotype of every individual describes how its appearance looks like. For instance, there is a well-established link between body height and 35 "Was ist Leben und was ist wertvolles Leben? Eine Kritik des Biofakt- nutrition; if underfed, a child might not become very tall. Even if there is a Konzepts", in: Erwagen, Wissen, Ethik 17 (2006)4,574-575. genetic predisposition for height, the actual height of a creature, meaning 36 See especially Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of the phenotype can not be determined by genes alone. Human Societies", New York: Norton, 1997. 12 See I. Eibl-Eibelsfeld, Liebe und Hass: Zur Naturgeschichteelementarer 37 Daniel D. Dennett, "Conditions of Personhood", in: Brainstorms: Verhaltensweisen. Miinchen: Piper, 1970. Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. New York: Norton, 1978, 13 See A. Femald. "Intonation and communicative intent in mother's 267-287. speech to infants: Is the melody the message?" Child Development 60, 1998,1497- 1510. Approval and Disapproval: Infant responsiveness to vocal affect infamiliar and unfamiliar languages. Developmental Psychology 64, Address 1993,657-674. Prof. Dr. Anne Foerst, St. Bonaventure University, Theology and 14 See W.R. Ashby. "Designs for a Brain". (2nded.), Chapman and Hall, Computer Science, 3261 West State Road, St. Bonaventure NY 14778, UK, 1960. USA 15 See "Liebe und Hass" (s. endnote 12). 16 Marco Iacobini, Roger Woods, Marcel Brass, Harold Bekkering, John Mazziotta, Giacomo Rizzolatti. Cortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation. Science, 286, Dec 24 (!), 1999,2526-2528. 17 Chris D. Frith, Uta Frith. "Interacting Minds - A Biological Basisyy. Science, 286, Nov 26, 1999, 1692-1695. 18 Jean Piaget, Biirbel Inhelder. The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books 1969,2000. 19 A. Diamond, Close Interrelation of Motor Development and Cognitive KRITIK 1 CRITIQUE Development and of the Cerebellum and Prefontal Cortex. Child Development 71, Jan/Feb 2000,44-57. 20 See Vilayanur Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: William Manow & Company, 1999. 21 0. Sacks, The Last Hippie, in: An Anthropologist on Mars. New York: But Perhaps Robots Are Essentially Non-Persons Random 1995. 22 See Antonio Damasio. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Avon Books, 1994. Selmer Bringsjord 23 Herbert Benson. "The Relaxation Response". New York: Avon, 1975. Beyond the Relaxation Response: How to harness the healingpower ofyour ((1)) After making a few theological remarks on Foerst's pro- personal beliefs. Times Books, June 1984. found and stimulating "Robots and Theology," and agreeing 24 Daniel Levin, Daniel Simons. "Failure to detect changes to attended with her that deficient robots of today do not imply that those objects in motion pictures". Psychonomic Bulletin &Review, 4, 1997,501- 506. of tomorrow will likewise lack personhood, I point out that 25 Daniel Simons "Change blindnessJy. (with Daniel Levin). Trends it is nonetheless entirely possible that the nature of "robot- in Cognitive Science 117 Oct 1997, 261-268. The Siren Song of Implicit hood" does forever preclude their being persons. 194 Dritte Diskussionseinheit / Third Discussion Unit EWE 20(2009)2

Theological Remarks cannot be any mental concept without its physical expres- sion." But again, Yahweh's mental life is quite rich, despite (((2)) According to Foerst, the "Cartesian mind-body split" the fact that he is incorporeal. ((45)) is to be rejected in favor of the view that human persons are "embodied creatures" ((67)). But certain theological tenets in Christian orthodoxy are incompatible with the view A Fallacy that humans are their bodies, as opposed to the view that hu- Exposed by Foerst mans merely have bodies, from which they can be detached. Expressing this tension via the work of particular thinkers ((5)) Passing from theology to the philosophy of minds and would be to list those who are proponents of the "soul-view" machines, Foerst notes that Kismet, a contemporary robot, of humans; the list would include Jesus, St. Paul, Augustine, like all others in existence today, clearly lacks certain powers Descartes, Leibniz, Pascal, Bolzano, and-more recently- that at least seem to be necessary for personhood. For ex- the philosophers Geach, Chisholm, Plantinga, James Ross, ample, Kismet does not experience subjective awareness, is and Swinburne. One commonaltty among those on this list is not self-conscious, has no free will, and cannot communicate the idea that when it is said that Selmer "has'" a soul, this is in a natural language such as German or English-yet these elliptical for saying that Selmer, hndamentally, is a rational, powers certainly seem to be four characteristics that are part thinking thing, a mind, non-physical in nature, but nonethe- and parcel of what it is to be a person. (On Dennett's ac- less intimately connected to extended objects (e.g., Selmer's count of personhood, which Foerst employs; this quartet of brain) in various ways, and such that he can shed his current properties is central.) But Foerst astutely points out that it is ' terrestrial body in favor of reconnection to another one in the fallacious to infer that future robots will be severely limited afterlife. This position in philosophy is elegantly summed up just because those of our time are. As she says in ((73)): "But and defended by Chisholm (1991), but the original source is [Kismet's deficiencies] cannot be in any way an argument Christ himself. For example: against the potential personhood of future robots."

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take ((6)) It seems quite undeniable that robots at the start of our up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will new millennium are most assuredly non-persons, as Foerst it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or observes. Moreover, as I have explained elsewhere (e.g., what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man Bringsjord 2007), roboticists today quite literally have no is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done." (Matthew idea whatsoever what to concretely do in order to enable ro- 16: 24-27; NIV) bots to experience, for real, what it is like to taste deep, dark chocolate ice cream, or romantic love; or in order to enable a ((3)) One doesn't need to be a systematic theologian to robot to converse at the level of a neurobiologically normal grasp that part of Jesus's point is that if Smith is a follower four-year-old child. The question is: While Foerst is right of Jesus, then he, himself, that is, Smith, qua soul, will, de- that it doesn't logically follow from this state of affairs that spite the death and decay of his earthly body, persist into future robots will be non-persons, is it possible that current the afterlife and be rewarded or punished there. There are failure reflects a fundamental and insurmountable inability any number of additional passages in which what Jesus of computation to produce person-level mentation? and other New-Testament writers (e.g., St. Paul; e.g., most prominently, his first epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 15). say commits them to the orthodox view-a view in which, But again, one doesn't have a soul as one has a nose, a heart, or What About the Nature of Robots? a brain, but in which one is a soul that is embodied and can be re-embodied. It was presumably familiarity with this view ((7)) I answer this question in the affirmative, and for essen- and the writings that express it that caused Turing (1950) to tially two decades have been providing rigorous arguments present and rebut the "Theological Objection" to his seminal in defense of this response (e.g., Bringsjord 1992, Bringsjord claim that computing machines would in the future be think- 2008). By my lights, the impoverished robots of today re- ing machines. flect the fact that computation, upon which all of robotics is based, is intrinsically incapable of supporting or generating ((4)) Note that the view that human persons have bodies, but the mental powers that are distinctive of persons. For ex- are not to be identified with them, is entailed by the concept ample, it is exceedingly hard to see how computation, even of the incarnation, in which God, an invisible spirit, takes in principle, can support anything like free will of the sort on human, bodily form. Of course, this is a Christian doc- enjoyed by you, me, and Foerst. It is entirely up to each of us trine, not a Hebrew one (though even the second generation whether to write a particular research paper, for instance. But of Christian apologists after the apostles, e.g., Justin Martyr, in the mathematics that defines computation (e.g., see Lewis argued for the incarnation on the basis of Hebrew scripture). & Papadimitriou 1981, and their account of deterministic Foerst, writing about the Hebrew tradition, says in ((5)): and non-deterministic Turing machines), actions are either "Any concept of a disembodied soul would have been alien necessitated by prior computational states, or are entirely ca- to the authors of this [= Genesis; SB] creation account." But pricious and occur for no particular reason. There thus seems the Old Testament clearly teach'es, repeatedly, that God is to be no room, however far into the future we may go, for both a person, and yet bodiless. Foerst writes in ((44)) that the kind of self-determining autonomy that is one of the hall- "If we take the concept of embodiment seriously, then there marks of persons. EWE 20(2009)2 Kritik I Critique 195

References mon~gamy.~In insects, monogamy can be enforced physi- cally. Where there is sexual reproduction and monogamy is Bringsjord, S (2008) "Ethical Robots: The Future Can Heed Us" AI and Society 22.4: 539-550. Preprint available at http:/hyten.mm.rpi.edd guaranteed, an individual's siblings are exactly as related to Brinrrsiord-EthRobots-searchable.udf. them as their children would be, that is, 50%. However, sib- Bringsjord, S (2007) "Offer: One Billion Dollars for a Conscious Robot. If lings do not require paying directly reproductive costs. In You're Honest, You Must Decline" Journal of Consciousness Studies 14.7: such species, the queen mother can live for decades, thus 28-43. Preprint available at httD:/~kwten.mm.rpi.edu/icsonebillion2.pdf. even generational considerations favouring youth are not Bringsjord, S (1992) What Robots Can and Can't Be (Dordrecht, The important. Netherlands: Kluwer). Chisholm, R (1991) "On the Simplicity of the Soul" in J. Tomberlin, ed., ((4)) Humans are not strictly monogamous, but our rational Philosophical Perspectives 5: Philosophy of Religion (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview). capacities both allow and incline some of us to value shared Lewis, H & Papadirnitriou, C (1981) Efgments of the Theoly of Computation ideas as highly as shared genes. Arguably, humanity has be- (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall). come a vehicle not only of biological evolution, but of cul- Turing, A (1950) "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" Mind 59: 433- tural evolution as ~ell.~tCulture - a collection of ideas, not 460. genes - appears to allow humanity to act with levels of altru- ism almost as high as those of eusocial insects. We have also Address become similarly explosively successful in terms of domi- nating a significant proportion of the Earth's biomass. Prof. Dr. Selmer Bringsjord, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Depart- ment of Cognitive Science / Department of Computer Science, Troy NY 12180, USA ((5)) If culture can be viewed as an evolutionary system, then it is not surprising that we place value on artifacts that propagate our ideas into the future. Such artifacts can be stories, songs, letters, inventions, articles, religions and yes, potentially robots. The anthropologist Helmreich5 has sug- Building Persons is a Choice gested that the desire to create Artificial Life is most present in researchers that are middle-aged males with a fixation on an individual capacity for creating life. But judging by the Joanna J. Bryson popularity of robots, the desire for this form of propagation is strong in a large section of society. ((1)) Although Foerst has provided an interesting account of robotics and personhood, I believe her key claim is this: ((6)) Saying that a robot can be a vehicle of culture, or even a that science is descriptive, while theology provides meaning producer of culture, is not the same as arguing that it should (6 1): "Whenever science leaves [description] ...and attempts be a person. It also does not mean that it would be ethically to construct meaning, it ceases to be science and enters the correct for us to build robots that we owe ethical obligation religious realm. Therefore, it is important to let the religious toward^.^ Robot-oriented ethics are fundamentally different and the scientific ...stand side by side to see where they from ethics involving other intelligent entities, because ro- can mutually enrich each other, without convoluting their bots are by definition artifacts of our own culture and intel- very different spheres." It is possible that science cannot ligence. We do have almost as much control over many other provide meaning. This depends on some axioms that it is species and sometimes other persons as we do over robots. not essential to this commentary to debate. Regardless of We - as individuals and as societies and cultures - regularly these, science can and should provide an explanation for decide the amount of resources (including space and time) why meaning is so often an essential motivation for human we are willing to allocate to other people and animals. But adults. This is a basic question of human psychology and individual members of biological species hold exquisitely human behaviour. complicated and unique minds and cultures. When these minds and cultures are eliminated, they are impossible to ((2)) Meaning is the motivation for rational action. Without ever fully replicate again. meaning we lose motivation, leaving our propensity to act inhibited - the definition of depression. Creating life is of ((7)) In the case of robots, the minds are not there yet, and course the ultimate biological motivation. Life can nearly be the culture they would affect (if we choose to allow them defined through reproduction.' However, biological success to) would be our own. We own robots. We design, manu- cannot simply be measured by counting the number of chil- facture and operate them. They are entirely our responsibil- dren an individual has. Some species invest relatively small ity. We determine their goals and behaviour, either directly amounts of resources in each of a large number of children, or indirectly through specifling their intelligence, or even while other species like ourselves invest huge amounts of more indirectly by specifling how they acquire their own resources in small numbers of children. intelligence. But at the end of every indirection lies the fact that there would be no robots on this planet if it weren't for ((3)) In the eusocial insects (such as some ants, bees and ter- deliberate human decisions to create mites) the majority of individuals apparently sacrifice their own reproductive capacity for the good of the hive or nest. ((8)) One of the things we can decide as a society is whether This lifestyle is not actually an evolutionary sacrifice though, to make robots irreplaceable. Making them so would be ir- since such systems originate only in the situation of strict responsible. There is an old undergraduate-party question