THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN MIND AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AN EVALUATION

Abstract

One of the essential constituents of the human person is the possession of mind. Mind is said to be the power of thinking. It is the capacity for a reflective activity. More so, the functions of the human mind include: cognition, memory, imagination, volition, among others. It has been observed that some scholars ascribe mind to machines in the same way it is applied to human mind. They argue that there is no essential difference between the human mind and machines. This position has created the problem of human mind and artificial intelligence among philosophers of mind. Employing the philosophical method of analysis, this study observes that although a great deal of achievement has been recorded in the field of cybernetics, it is altogether unreasonable to attribute mind/intelligence to machine. The study maintains that machines, no matter how sophisticated they may be, do not have minds of their own, and this is seen in the fact that they cannot originate their own ideas; they lack creative and innovative capacities. The study therefore concludes that it is only human beings are truly intelligent; the so-called intelligence of machines is simply artificial in every sense of the word.