[0x0203]

I have a theory (with no data to back it up; would be curious to get people's thoughts) that people with a religious or spiritual world-view, who believe that there is such thing as a soul, and that the mind is more than just a collection of neurons in the brain, are much less inclined to think that "AI" will ever reach a sort of singularity or true "human-like" intelligence. And likewise, those who are more atheist/agnostic, or inclined to believe that human consciousness is nothing more than the patterns of neurons firing in response to various stimuli, are more convinced that a human-like machine/programmed intelligence is not only possible, but inevitable given enough resources.

I could be wildly off base, but seeing many of the (often heated) arguments made about what AI is or isn't or should or could be, it makes me wonder.

[mcv]

As it happens, I am indeed Christian. But I see the soul as the software that runs on the hardware of our brain (although those aren't as neatly separated in our brain as they are in computers), and I suspect that it should be possible to simulate it in theory. I just think we're nowhere near that. We still don't agree on what the many aspects of intelligence are and how they work together to form the human mind. And then there's consciousness; we have no clue what it is. Maybe it's emergent? Maybe it's illusion? Or is it something real? I don't think we'll be able to create a truly human-like intelligence until we figure that one out.

Although we're certainly making a lot of progress on other aspects of intelligence.

And then there's all the talk of a singularity in innovation or progress that to me betrays a lack of understanding of what the word singularity means, and a lack of understanding of the limits of knowledge and progress.