Be Intelligent About AI: Should We Create Artificially Intelligent Machines?

“Artificial intelligence” has become a popular term to describe an ever-growing array of technology, but what makes it intelligent? Philosopher John Searle analyzed artificial intelligence (AI) with his famous distinction between “weak” and “strong” AI, the former being data-driven tools we use daily while the latter has a mind and cognitive states of its own. However, this distinction does not fully address the equally pressing, moral question of whether we should develop or use such AI in the first place. By applying a range of both technical and fictional sources, we can define a new pair of categories, Algorithmic AI and Fictional AI, that answer not only what makes such AI intelligent, but whether we should even pursue it. Algorithmic AI is our present computer programs that merely follow advanced algorithms (Siri, Alexa, ChatGPT); creating Algorithmic AI as a tool is not itself immoral—but how we use it can be. Fictional AI, however, exhibits its own form of intelligence and, so far, only exists in fiction (Blade Runner, I, Robot); creating Fictional AI would be immoral altogether.