• Question: Could you really be a sentient robot instead of a human being, if so how?

    Asked by ZimZam the Spaceman to Alessandra, Dimitrios, Becky, Stacey on 21 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Stacey Marple

      Stacey Marple answered on 21 Jun 2017:

      Very good question. Though computers and robots are more advanced than ever, they’re still just programmed tools. They are unaware of their own existence, creating consciousness would require us to fully understand human consciousness, I don’t think we are there yet. I think it is a long way off and it raises many ethical issues too.

    • Photo: Alessandra Treviso

      Alessandra Treviso answered on 22 Jun 2017:

      We are, luckily, far away from this. Robots are programmed by humans and are not aware of their existence.
      Not sure if it is still on but there is a quite interesting exhibition about robots at the Science Museum in London. One of the robots they have “learnt” to distinguish different objects withouth them bein known by its programme. It is a bit the idea behind neural networks, I think. A fascinating thing to look for is deepmind (should be a google company now).

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