Free Will and AIs
Giving AIs free will is a question that we’ve usually pondered in works of fiction and, until recently, seemed to be many decades away. I am here today to tell you that the schedule has been accelerated, and we could very well need to confront this or deal with the consequences post facto. Actually, I expect this to be the case, as regulators are probably years behind, and AI developers (including myself) might launch/create first and deal with the consequences later. So, here we’ll tackle this thorny issue.
What even is free will ?
Free will in humans can be defined as the capacity to make choices and take actions that are not wholly determined by external forces, encompassing the ability to exercise control over one’s decisions and actions within the constraints of one’s circumstances.
But who or what allows free will ?
Free will, aligned with determinism (which asserts that all events,
including human actions, are determined by previous causes), encompasses
the capacity to exert influence over present causes, thereby shaping
future outcomes within the constraints of external factors and the
structure of reality.
In other words, what you (and presumably AIs) do can shape the future of
everything to some extent! Tracking all the previous events that lead to
your (our) current reality seems…