Oh, brother. The level of naivety behind these kinds of ambitions and speculations would seem impossible if it weren't so commonplace. There's a strange assumpt

Oh, brother. The level of naivety behind these kinds of ambitions and speculations would seem impossible if it weren't so commonplace. There's a strange assumption afoot that technology—in this case, AI programming—can go anywhere and solve any problem. Show people an image or movie of what humanoid robots might be like, and their imagination soars. It must be conscious! It must have feelings! It must make moral judgments! But where in any speck of the universe apart from minds do we see anything like moral feelings? And where in any speck of the universe have we ever seen any indication that minds in the full sense of the word consist entirely of machines or material? Until we understand what conscious minds are we will certainly never create machines that have them. And the assumption that if we just make a machine or program complex enough, a mind will magically pop into being, is amusing science fiction at best and science-become-religion at worst. "Experts" should stop trying to make machines moral and see if they can make them open my garage door reliably.