Is Synthetic Intelligence a Person?

By Jason M. Pittman, Sc.D.

Thus far, we have examined the definition of synthetic intelligence and outlined the qualities of intelligence and consciousness. We have also discussed how we can communicate with a synthetic intelligence. These aspects of synthetic intelligence are reductionist however. That is, we've only looked at subcomponents to define higher order constructs. What about the higher order construct itself? Well, we may want to start with examining if synthetic intelligence is a person. I contend that person may not be an accurate descriptor. First, however, we need to establish what constitutes personhood.

What is a Person

Foremost, a person is a Being possessing consciousness. A human is a person, for example, whereas not all persons are humans. Typically, we refer to the latter as non-human persons (e.g., other members of the great ape family). Further, a person has social relationships such as responsibility and culture. How the concept of person applies to various Beings is a debated concept because of the effects of social and cultural changes.

Nonetheless, I think that a synthetic intelligence will satisfy the first quality. Yet, I am not certain about synthetic intelligence exhibiting social attributes. I'm not certain because I think synthetic intelligence may not manifest identity the way classical persons do.

You see, identity is one way to conceptualize personhood. This gets tricky however because identity exists at two levels of resolution (at least): individual and collective.

 

Individual versus Collective

I am an individual person. I have consciousness (I think) and I have social attributes. Further, my identity as an individual is formulated by not only my history but also my present embodiment of both my consciousness and my social attributes. As well, as an individual I am unique amongst the set of all individuals. No one shares my history, for example.

Now, I am also part of a collective. I’m part of a set of collectives to be fair; professor, author, human, so forth and so on. Each collective is a set itself and contains unique individuals and perhaps sub-collectives too. However, collectives emerge at the level of social attributes and not at the level of the individual. Thus, collectives are not persons.

With synthetic intelligence, despite possessing consciousness, I have doubts that such consciousness will be unique across individuals. That is, I think all synthetic intelligence will manifest a singular consciousness, identical across all individuals. Here, I think of colonizing organisms such as ants or bees. Further, I'm not certain that synthetic intelligence will adopt social relationships apart from goal seeking behaviors. Again, this strikes me as normatively colonizing insect behavior.

Based on that, I might suggest that the individual is indistinguishable from the collective in the context of synthetic intelligence. In other words, the individual is a localized representation of the set of all individuals (i.e., the collective) and the collective is an abstract mirror of the individual.

Accordingly, I don't believe that person is applicable for synthetic intelligence. More apt I think is a term such as supraperson since the synthetic intelligence is beyond or outside of the individual. What do you think?