* This article contains spoilers for the movie "Wall-E".
We all remember the end of Pixar's recent masterpiece "Wall-E" (if you haven't seen it, shame on you). Just as our damaged, "dying" hero makes it back to Earth, his companion frantically searches through some spare parts and inserts a new motherboard into Wall-E's well-worn casing. At first, he wakes up as a brand new unit, devoid of the memories and personality that made him who he was. Then, after a sad, solemn "kiss," Wall-E miraculously grips his pearly lover's hand and intones a touchingly familiar, "Eve...?"
At this moment and throughout the film, Pixar deals with a fundamental question of recent history: can we transform a collection of circuits, wires and other assorted elements into an intelligent, sentient, even loving being? Thankfully, I have the answer: No ... not yet.
We have a cultural expectation that AI is not only possible, but inevitable. Films from almost the beginning of Hollywood's existence have featured humanoid and semi-humanoid intelligent robots. Almost everyone is familiar with Isaac Asimov's robot novels (or at least his "Three Laws of Robotics" or surely the "I, Robot" movie with Will Smith). Popular culture is inundated with AI, to the point where it seems a given that we will one day live alongside - or, in the more pessimistic scenarios, live under the iron fists of intelligent machines. Is this an accurate expectation, though?
Philosophically, the nature of mind is one of the trickiest issues of modern thought. For centuries, René Descartes' position - that mind and brain are separate "substances" that interact mysteriously - was widely accepted. His "dualism" allows for belief in a "soul" that persists after the death of the physical brain, as well as for pure soul-beings with no physical form (i.e. angels, ghosts, etc.).
Because of many logical inadequacies, dualism has since fallen from prominence. Modern philosophy of mind centers on two competing theories, reductive and anti-reductive physicalism. In essence, these theories state that mind and brain are both physical - they are made of the same stuff as everything else in the world. Anti-reductive physicalism maintains that while mind and brain might both be physical, the mind has different properties that cannot be reduced to a purely physical explanation. Reductive physicalism argues that mind is brain, along with all thoughts, memories, etc. that it houses, thereby allowing for artificial, intelligent minds.
The human brain is a fascinating piece of machinery, but it is vastly unlike any computer in existence. I encourage everyone to read the article "10 Important Differences Between Brains and Computers" by Chris Chatham (Google is your friend). In short, computers are digital, massively serial, linear machines, whereas brains are analog, massively parallel, non-linear machines. Contrary to popular belief, it would not be enough for humans to simply build a computer just as complicated as the human brain in order to create a mind. An artificial mind would have to be complicated in the correct way (whatever that is), or even uncomplicated in the correct way (if flies, sheep or Paris Hilton are any indication). Also, cute and humanoid looking as ASIMO is, don't expect his successors to be doing your English papers for you anytime soon.
So, there you have it. AI is philosophically and theoretically possible, but not with the type of technology we currently possess. For now, we'll just have to settle for friends who aren't fluent in over six million forms of communication, can't turn off their emotions with a switch, and can't learn a new skill in seconds via FireWire. And as for love, well... the human kind is good enough for this opinionated columnist.
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