Year 11 - Religious education
AI: is it a person?
Personhood: what might be the people of the future?
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Study Guides
This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit focusses on developing technology and how it might impact people in the future. It takes a philosphical way of knowing to ask whether online relationships are the same as those in person. It questions whether devlelopments in AI and robotics may enhance or supplant personal relationships.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to consider whether AI can be a person and how Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment can be applied to this question.
Key Notes
- Being a person means having awareness, understanding, feelings and moral judgement.
- AI can follow rules and give correct answers without truly understanding.
- Functionalism says having a mind depends on what something does, not what it is made of.
- If functionalism is true, AI could be said to have consciousness.
- Searle's Chinese Room challenges functionalism, suggesting AI behaviour alone does not prove it has a mind.
Vocabulary To Learn
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): computer systems that perform tasks needing human-like intelligence
- Chinese Room: Searle's thought experiment about understanding
- person: a being with a mind capable of conscious experience, understanding, and meaningful action
- understanding: grasping meaning, not just following rules
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Students may think that if an AI gives correct answers, it must understand what it is saying and therefore be a person.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
Being a person means having awareness, understanding, feelings and moral judgement. AI can follow rules and give correct answers without truly understanding.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'Artificial Intelligence (AI)'
computer systems that perform tasks needing human-like intelligence.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Students may think that if an AI gives correct answers, it must understand what it is saying and therefore be a person. Correction: Correct answers do not prove understanding. Searle argues AI follows rules and symbols without grasping meaning, unlike humans who understand concepts, intentions and consciousness.
More Lessons In This Unit
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