My examples scattered hitherto over many a post were stodgy such as ‘decoy’ in ‘decoy duck’ and faux in ‘faux marble.’ A decoy duck is not a duck. Faux marble is not marble. An aktuell example is ‘artificial’ in ‘artificial intelligence.’ Artificial intelligence is not intelligence any more than artificial leather is leather. Just as there are not two kinds of leather, artificial and real, there are not two kinds of intelligence, artificial and real. Artificial leather simulates (real) leather; artificial intelligence simulates (real) intelligence. Those are bare assertions. I link to an argument of mine at the end of this post. This just over the transom from Tony Flood:
Philosophically trained, this Substacker asks the right questions re: “AI without minds.” Doubting, as a good Lonerganian should, that AI is at all a species of intelligence, I’ve nevertheless been socially inhibited about using locutions like “so-called AI.” But no more. A baby brain is not an incipient computer, and computers neither are nor have minds. That insight might resonate with you as it does with me. She’s my “go-to” on this topic.
Yes, Tony, your Lonerganian point resonates with me although I put it in a different way above using ‘alienans adjective,’ a term I picked up from Peter Geach, no slouch of a philosopher. From whom did he get it? No idea. Probably from some medieval dude.
I explore the topic further and give more examples in Fiction and Alienans Adjectives.
As for the substantive question whether AI systems are conscious, I argue for a negative answer in my Substack article Artificial Intelligence and the Unity of Consciousness.