Episode 72: Tweenie Turing Tests, AI, and Ex Machina (with Joshua Weisberg)

It finally happened: David and Tamler welcome special guest Joshua Weisberg to the podcast to talk about Turing machines, Chinese Rooms, and AI. What does it mean for a machine to acquire intelligence? What is the proper test? How much processing power would it take? Do computers shed light on how human beings think? Why is John Searle trapped in a Chinese room, anyway? Plus, a spoiler-filled discussion (beginning at 58:20) of the recent movie Ex Machina. David tries to assert his feminist bonafides but Tamler takes Eva's side, proving once again that he is the real feminist. And we have a quick 5-minute discussion of Mr. Robot Episode 4 (beginning at 1:24) and respond to a couple of emails from the authors of the Inside Out article we discussed in our previous episode.

Links

• Turing Test [wikipedia.org]
• Chinese Room thought experiment [wikipedia.org]
• Artificial Intelligence [wikipedia.org]
• Weisberg, J. (2009). It stands to reason: Skynet and self-preservation. In Irwin, W., Brown, R., & Decker, K. S. (Eds.) Terminator and philosophy: I'll be back, therefore I am (Vol. 13). John Wiley & Sons.
• Ex Machina [IMDB.com]

Special Guest: Josh Weisberg.

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