Artificial Intelligence & Freedom = la Grande Réalité
“There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” ― T.S. Eliot
Fuster, a cognitive neuroscientist, argues that "freedom is a function of the cerebral cortex, under prefrontal control, in its reciprocal interaction with the environment." [1] As such, the neuroscience of freedom or free will is an inquiry into the cerebral foundation of human's ability to choose between alternative actions and to freely lead creative plans to their goal. [2]
Kane contra-argues "the concept of free will is definitely more complex than it appears on the surface, but crucial to both individual and social life. " [3] This same relates to human cerebral cortex, which is kind of like a biochemical factory, operating in a sphere that you can’t stretch out on integrated circuits and circuit boards "in order to emulate all of its electrical activity,” says Alice Parker. Parker is also a cognitive neuroscientist but she specializes in “synthetic cortex”. [4]
Together with her team, she studies the behavior of cortical neurons – what makes them fire and send signals through synaptic connectors to other neurons in the human cortex - as well as the neurons’ “plasticity,” or ability to learn and remember. [5] Basically, the aim of her research is to answer one leading question: Will we ever be able to construct a software intelligent brain of that exhibits almost real-time behavior?
This note provides a view that if we succeed at that particular quest we might also tackle the issue of the eternal question of whether software intelligence can ever have free will. As argued by Parker "there is a real possibility of constructing neural structures on the scale of the human brain.” [6] But is there any established research on relation between cerebral cortex and free will? And will there every be such a relation (if any) between the artificial brain and free will?
With regards to the former, the first well-known, strand of research on the brain correlates of free will was that pioneered by Libet and his team. [7] They focused on unconscious intentions affecting decisions regarded as free and voluntary. [8] The findings, recently confirmed by other researchers, [9] show that human actions are triggered by "unconscious neural activity and that the awareness of those actions only occurs at a later time, when we think we are willing to act." [10] The experiments seem to indicate that free will is an illusion. Empirical research proves that human brain works and makes choices without human conscious control. [11] As such neuroscience had produced empirical evidence against free will, but proved that human brain act “mechanically". Our brain is a type of "fabulous automation"! [12]
Based on that assumption there is nothing stopping us from constructing a software intelligent brain characterized by software intelligence and having free will, even if only marked by illusion!
So real, isn't?
Simply, la Grande Réalité!
References:
(OSCOLA style of referencing) (1) Joaquin M Fuster, The Neuroscience of Freedom and Creativity: Our Predictive Brain (Cambridge University Press 2013) 41.
(2) ibid 42.
(3) R Kane, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (Oxford University Press 2005) 60.
(4) NC State University, 'Building a Synthetic Brain' (NCSU 3 February 2011) <www.ece.ncsu.edu/2011/02/building-a-synthetic-brain/> accessed 11 June 2018.
(5) ibid.
(6) ibid.
(7) B Libet, 'Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will involuntary action' (1985) 8 Behav Brain Sci 529–566.
(8) ibid.
(9) B Libet, Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness (Harvard University Press 2004).
(10) ibid.
(11) ibid, for more see for example, DM Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will (The MIT Press 2002)
(12) G Piccinini and S Bahar, Neural Computation and the Computational Theory of Cognition" in Cognitive Science (2012) <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cogs.12012> accessed 11 June 2018.