My book club in Portland argued for 45 minutes about whether the main character in 'Klara and the Sun' was actually sentient.

This guy named Mark kept saying 'It's just complex programming, not a person,' and his quiet wife finally looked right at him and said, 'You're describing my autism diagnosis from when I was seven.'

4 comments

4 Comments

faith_shah882mo ago

My philosophy professor in college had this whole lecture about the Turing Test. He said passing it just means you can fool someone, not that you have a real mind. I remember this girl in the front row, she was an art major, she just put her hand up and asked, "So if I can't tell the difference between a real feeling and a good fake, does it even matter?" The room got super quiet. He just smiled and said that was the only question worth asking.

nguyen.angela1mo ago

My art history prof said the same thing about perfect forgeries, actually.

nancyg142mo ago

Honestly that art major had a point though. We fake feelings all the time to be polite, like pretending to care about a coworker's weekend. If a machine can do that just as well, maybe the "real" mind part is overrated. Tbh I feel like philosophers make this way deeper than it needs to be.

the_max2mo ago

Exactly, and @nancyg14 gets it. If the fake works perfectly, maybe the real thing was just a fancy story we told ourselves.