Carlo Rovelli addresses the confusion surrounding thinking machines by distinguishing between two questions.
Question 1: How close are machines we’ve built or will build to thinking like humans? Rovelli emphasizes the vast gap in performance, structure, and function between our best computers and a child’s brain. He suggests that discussions about dealing with thinking machines are premature given the current state of technology.
Question 2: Is it possible to build a thinking machine at all? Rovelli finds this question puzzling and asserts that it’s entirely possible. He rejects the idea that building thinking machines requires supernatural elements and emphasizes naturalism, highlighting that humans, as natural creatures, can create thinking and emotional beings through biological reproduction.
Rovelli attributes the confusion to an overly simplistic view of natural reality, which fails to account for the richness and diversity of phenomena that emerge from complex arrangements of particles. He posits that if our civilization advances sufficiently, we may one day create thinking machines through technology, and we should approach them as natural creatures with a mix of cruelty, egoism, empathy, curiosity, and respect, just as we have with other species and cultures throughout history.