Strong AI Versus Weak AI

Computer Science An Overview _J. Glenn Brookshear _11th Edition

The conjecture that machines can be programmed to exhibit intelligent behavior is
known as weak AI and is accepted, to varying degrees, by a wide audience today.
However, the conjecture that machines can be programmed to possess intelligence
and, in fact, consciousness, which is known as strong AI, is widely debated.
Opponents of strong AI argue that a machine is inherently different from a human
and thus can never feel love, tell right from wrong, and think about itself in the same
way that a human does. However, proponents of strong AI argue that the human mind
is constructed from small components that individually are not human and are not
conscious but, when combined, are. Why, they argue, would the same phenomenon
not be possible with machines?
The problem in resolving the strong AI debate is that such attributes as intelli-
gence and consciousness are internal characteristics that cannot be identified
directly. As Alan Turing pointed out, we credit other humans with intelligence
because they behave intelligently—even though we cannot observe their internal
mental states. Are we, then, prepared to grant the same latitude to a machine if it
exhibits the external characteristics of consciousness? Why or why not?