IISER MOHALI

Abstract: This talk is a contemplation on the big claim about AI, namely that in the future, AI can possess things, have motives and desires, and push humans to extinction. To understand this big claim, we need to look at the logical structure of beliefs and desires. Beliefs and desires have what is known as directions of fit (Anscombe), something the AI system will find hard to achieve. For argument's sake, if we grant that AI systems of the future can have beliefs and desires with directions of fit, another component is still missing. These are declarations (Searle) - an arrangement of beliefs and desires by which we possess things. Ansu Louis talked about the psychoanalytic background of possessions on the one hand and the libido on the other. In a psychoanalytic reading, only a biological, sexual being can have beliefs, desires and possessions. Dreams are a result of us being guided by beliefs and desires. Psychoanalytically, to dream is to be human, and to not dream is to be an artifact!