NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Philosophy and Computers SPRING 2020 VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 PREFACE Stephen L. Thaler DABUS in a Nutshell Peter Boltuc Terry Horgan FROM THE ARCHIVES The Real Moral of the Chinese Room: Understanding Requires Understanding Phenomenology AI Ontology and Consciousness Lynne Rudder Baker Selmer Bringsjord A Refutation of Searle on Bostrom (re: Malicious Machines) and The Shrinking Difference between Artifacts and Natural Objects Floridi (re: Information) Amie L. Thomasson AI and Axiology Artifacts and Mind-Independence: Comments on Lynne Rudder Baker’s “The Shrinking Difference between Artifacts and Natural Luciano Floridi Objects” Understanding Information Ethics Gilbert Harman John Barker Explaining an Explanatory Gap Too Much Information: Questioning Information Ethics Yujin Nagasawa Martin Flament Fultot Formulating the Explanatory Gap Ethics of Entropy Jaakko Hintikka James Moore Logic as a Theory of Computability Taking the Intentional Stance Toward Robot Ethics Stan Franklin, Bernard J. Baars, and Uma Ramamurthy Keith W. Miller and David Larson Robots Need Conscious Perception: A Reply to Aleksander and Measuring a Distance: Humans, Cyborgs, Robots Haikonen Dominic McIver Lopes P. O. Haikonen Remediation Revisited: Replies to Gaut, Matravers, and Tavinor Flawed Workspaces? FROM THE EDITOR: NEWSLETTER HIGHLIGHTS M. Shanahan Unity from Multiplicity: A Reply to Haikonen REPORT FROM THE CHAIR Gregory Chaitin NOTE FROM THE 2020 BARWISE PRIZE WINNER Leibniz, Complexity, and Incompleteness Aaron Sloman Aaron Sloman My Philosophy in AI: A Very Short Set of Notes Towards My Architecture-Based Motivation vs. Reward-Based Motivation Barwise Prize Acceptance Talk Ricardo Sanz ANNOUNCEMENT Consciousness, Engineering, and Anthropomorphism Robin Hill Troy D. Kelley and Vladislav D. Veksler The Association for Philosophy and Computing Sleep, Boredom, and Distraction—What Are the Computational Benefits for Cognition? VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2020 © 2020 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Philosophy and Computers PETER BOLTUC, EDITOR VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2020 have downgraded artifacts because they think of PREFACE metaphysics as resting on a distinction between what is “mind-independent” and what is “mind-dependent.” I’ll Peter Boltuc challenge the use of any such distinction as a foundation UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS–SPRINGFIELD for metaphysics. THE WARSAW SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS ARTIFACTS AS ORDINARY OBJECTS The aim of this last issue of the Newsletter of the APA Artifacts should ft into any account of ordinary objects Committee on Philosophy and Computers is to feature some for the simple reason that so many ordinary objects are of the articles we were able to publish over the years. We artifacts. We sleep in beds; we eat with knives and forks; published original papers by the late Lynne Rudder (2008), we drive cars; we write with computers (or with pencils); Jaakko Hintikka (2011, 2013) and John Pollock (2010) as we manufacture nails. Without artifacts, there would be no well as by the eminent philosophers Gilbert Harman (2007), recognizable human life. James Moor (2007), Luciano Floridi (multiple), Gregory Chaitin (2009), Dominic McIver Lopes (2009), Terry Horgan On my view—I call it “the Constitution View”—all concrete (2013) and many others. We are using the archives to objects, except for “simples” if there are any, are ultimately highlight some of the high points. Detailed discussion can constituted by sums (or aggregates) of objects. Technical be found in the note from the editor just below the main artifacts—artifacts made to serve some practical purpose— block of papers. are, like nonartifacts, constituted by lower-level entities. Constitution is a relation of unity-without-identity. Unlike We end with a few pointers towards the next steps that the identity, constitution is a contingent and time-bound community of philosophy and computing may be taking relation. To take a simple-minded example, consider a some time soon. This includes creation of an Association wooden rod and a piece of metal with a hole just slightly on Philosophy and Computers, afliated with the APA and bigger than the diameter of the rod. When the aggregate of potentially other initiatives. the rod and the piece of metal are in certain circumstances (e.g., when someone wants to make a hammer and inserts the rod into the hole in the metal), a new object—a hammer—comes into being. Since the rod and the piece of FROM THE ARCHIVES: metal existed before the hammer did, the relation between the aggregate of the rod and the piece of metal and the AI ONTOLOGY AND hammer is not identity. It is constitution. CONSCIOUSNESS Typically, artifacts are constituted by aggregates of things. But not always: a paperclip is constituted by a small piece The Shrinking Difference Between of thin wire; and a $50 bill is constituted by a piece of paper. Nevertheless, the piece of thin wire and the piece of paper Artifacts and Natural Objects* themselves are constituted by aggregates of molecules, which in turn are constituted by aggregates of atoms. So, Lynne Rudder Baker even those artifacts (like paperclips) that are constituted UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST by a single object are, at a lower level, constituted by aggregates of atoms. For simplicity, I’ll consider artifacts Originally published in the APA Newsletter on Philosophy and to be constituted by aggregates of things, not by a single Computers 7, no. 2 (2008): 2–5. object. Any items whatever are an aggregate. The identity conditions of aggregates are simple: aggregate x is Artifacts are objects intentionally made to serve a given identical to aggregate y just in case exactly the same items purpose; natural objects come into being without human are in aggregate x and aggregate y. intervention. I shall argue that this diference does not signal any ontological defciency in artifacts qua artifacts. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ARTIFACTS AND After sketching my view of artifacts as ordinary objects, NATURAL OBJECTS I’ll argue that ways of demarcating genuine substances do not draw a line with artifacts on one side and natural Technical artifacts have proper functions that they are objects on the other. Finally, I’ll suggest that philosophers designed and produced to perform (whether they APA NEWSLETTER | PHILOSOPHY AND COMPUTERS successfully perform their proper functions or not).1,2 (5) Fs are genuine substances only if the identity and Indeed, the general term for a kind of artifact—e.g., persistence of Fs is independent of any intentional polisher, scraper, life preserver—often just names the activity. proper function of the artifact. An artifact has its proper function essentially: the nature of an artifact lies in its Let us consider (1) through (5) one at a time. proper function—what it was designed to do, the purpose for which it was produced.3 Moreover, artifacts have their (1) The frst condition—Fs are genuine substances only persistence conditions in virtue of being the kind of artifact if Fs have an internal principle of activity—has its source that they are. Put an automobile in a crusher and it—it— in Aristotle.6 Aristotle took this condition to distinguish goes out of existence altogether. The metal and plastic objects that come from nature (e.g., animals and plants) cube that comes out of the crusher is not the same object from objects that come from other efcient causes (e.g., (your old clunker of a car) that went in. Since artifacts beds). But this condition does not rule in natural objects have intended functions essentially, they are what I call and rule out artifacts as genuine substances. A piece of “intention-dependent” or “ID” objects: they could not exist gold is a natural object, but today, we would not consider in a world without beings with propositional attitudes. a piece of gold (or any other chemical element) to have an internal principle of change; conversely, a heat-seeking Natural objects difer from artifacts in at least three ways: (1) missile is an artifact, but it does have an internal principle of Artifacts (and not natural objects) depend ontologically— activity. So, the frst condition does not distinguish artifacts not just causally—for their existence on human purposes. from natural objects. (2) Relatedly, artifacts are “intention-dependent” (ID) objects that could not exist in a world without minds. (2) The second condition—Fs are genuine substances only Natural objects, which can be deployed to serve human if there are laws that apply to Fs as such, or there could purposes, would exist regardless of human intentions or be a science of Fs—also allows artifacts to be genuine practices. (3) Artifacts (and not natural objects) essentially substances. Engineering felds blur the line between have intended proper functions, bestowed on them by natural objects and artifacts. Engineering schools have beings with beliefs, desires, and intentions. courses in materials science (including advanced topics in concrete), trafc engineering, transportation science, THE ONTOLOGICAL STATUS OF ARTIFACTS computer science—all of which quantify over artifacts. Since Many important philosophers—from Aristotle on—hold something’s being of an artifactual kind (e.g., computer) artifacts ontologically in low regard. Some philosophers does not preclude a science of it, the second condition have gone so far as to argue that “artifacts such as ships, does not make artifacts less than genuine substances. houses, hammers, and