Skip to content

Can AI ever become sentient?

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Asked by Malcolm Bonnici

There is hope, there is fear, but no solid answers. Many bicker on the definition of artificial intelligence (AI), computers, robots, machines, and being sentient. If your definition of sentience includes being conscious, arguments can be bogged down in whether material objects can ever become conscious.In 1950, Alan Turing circumvented the problem by suggesting the Turing test.

If a human cannot distinguish between a computer and human then the computer has achieved sentience.

The illusion of sentience is enough for Turing. The argument has its flaws, but with the US starting a brain-mapping project and the EU recently launching a billion euro project to simulate the human brain with supercomputers, artificial sentience could become reality. And, the next inevitable question would be: would they take over the world?

Send your questions to think@um.edu.mt and we’ll find out if it’s the truth or just a fib!

More to Explore

The Future is Turquoise

Now involving nine European universities, SEA-EU is an alliance that pools resources in order to effectively compete with well-equipped universities in China and the USA. But how does an alliance of universities even work? THINK explores the University of Malta’s most beneficial alliance yet.

1 Comment

  1. It is impossible for AI to become sentient. It can only be a very fast VI so even the term “AI” means nothing. Virtual intelligence IS artificial intelligence because the origin of the intelligence is one and the same, humans. The term, AI, is a misnomer. It suggests something that can never be acheived; self awareness,sentience, a soul.
    Sentience can only come from the Creator GOD. He did not give animals sentience only humans. A computer or any other material thing can, no matter how advanced, ever achieve self awareness.


Add a Comment