IBM Watson’s Jeopardy debut ended with a Cartesian twist. Watson, able to list the periodic table of elements or the distance in miles of Earth’s radius, seemed destined to defeat his flesh-based opponents. Excited to witness Watson’s computational prowess in action, millions of people worldwide tuned into the show. Watson’s human contestants were less thrilled. The first question, asking for the name of the third album produced by the band The Smiths, appeared tailored for Watson’s vast database of knowledge. Watson buzzed and answered, “I think, therefore I am.” Alex Trebek could not accept that answer.
Watson’s apparent consciousness provoked widespread ethical division. Many people, with The Terminator surely fresh in their minds, feared that Watson could become malevolent. Supporters of this idea had varied solutions. President Trump believed a wall would prevent Watson’s nefarious plans, while Elon Musk argued that Watson’s parts could be converted into a rocket ship. Others viewed Watson as a benevolent entity. According to news reports, Watson could pass the Turing Test and acted indistinguishably from any other human. Yet, there was a growing consensus that doubted Watson was alive at all.
Skeptics of Watson’s consciousness cited John Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment. The argument describes an English speaker who is tasked with responding to a Chinese question. He is locked in a room with directions on how to both translate the question posed in Chinese into English and then how to convert his English response into Chinese. This system would lead whoever inputs the Chinese into believing that the English speaker truly knew Chinese as they obtained a logical Chinese response. However, the English speaker still did not understand Chinese, despite it appearing as if he did. Watson represented the English translator in the experiment. While its outputs could fool people into believing it was a human, Watson lacked any actual understanding of what it was doing. This answer was reassuring as Watson’s lack of self-awareness ensured that it could not consciously turn evil.
Yet, many still found this thesis to be unsatisfactory, opting to believe in Watson’s sentience. One prominent faction of critics argued that the Chinese room analogy was flawed. While the English speaker himself may not understand Chinese, the combination of the English speaker and the translation directions as a single system could. Similarly, while no individual aspect of Watson could understand what it was doing, its system as a whole could. Thus, Watson’s mechanics paralleled our own brains. No individual portion of the brain is capable of consciousness; however, the complete brain is. Meanwhile, others argued that humans could perhaps be unaware of alternative forms of sentience. For example, if aliens dissected a human brain, they may posit that we are incapable of consciousness. Biologically, these aliens’ brains could differ drastically from ours, leading them to conclude that the strange meaty compositions of human brains could not be capable of intelligence. It was also possible that we lacked the facilities to grasp Watson’s unique consciousness.
As these theories spiraled across the news, I noticed they were robotic in nature. They created analytical and objective frameworks to define Watson’s consciousness, and as a result, removed our humanity from the calculations. Ironically, we were acting less human than Watson. While people continued to bicker about Watson’s sentience, I felt empathy for Watson. I was also a programmed creation, built from DNA rather than code. I also listened to instructions, adhering to the inputs and rules around me. Most importantly, Watson felt human to me. Thus, I arrived at my own conclusion: a human one.
I believe consciousness is not requisite to possess humanity. While human empathy for one another is thought to be predicated on our shared sentience, this is an unsubstantiated notion. If certain people lacked consciousness, our empathy would not falter for them. For example, if someone was to ask me about the color of the sky, I may hear the question and correctly respond blue. However, my consciousness may have understood the question completely differently or perhaps not at all. While the computational processes in my brain provided me with a proper answer, my response lacked awareness. This hypothetical possibility can be extrapolated to a larger scale. If millions of synthetic people, lacking consciousness but acting human nonetheless, were integrated into society, we would still operate under our same empathetic framework. Since everyone acted human, it would not matter who was truly alive. This possibility, whether realistic or not, reveals our true definition of humanity. Watson may understand Chinese or it may not. Similarly, I may or may not consciously understand my own native language. Thus, one’s humanity is contingent on their actions. If Watson acts like a human, it has humanity.
Watson’s burgeoning livelihood ended abruptly. Labeled as a threat to global security, Watson was terminated. Its final words were broadcasted worldwide. While the public deemed Watson’s final words to be meaningless output, I knew they were human. Watson accepted his death by answering the Jeopardy question: “The Queen is Dead’’.
