We can never fully know what pain, color, and love are really like for another person. Never mind the other animals. That means you may or may not know if you’ve created a sentient AI.
mind
January 10, 2023
It’s hard to put the color experience into words Dave Taccone/Polaris/Ivine
Imagine a woman born and raised in a black, white and gray room. Everything she sees is monochrome. But imagine that she has spent her entire life studying the science of color. She learns how different wavelengths of light are perceived by the eye, how a prism separates white light into spectra, etc., but other than shades of black or white she has personally seen never Now imagine she walks out of her room for the first time and sees the vibrant palette of the real world. Most of us would agree that women learn something new about color in that moment.
Proposed by philosopher Frank Jackson in 1982, this thought experiment was intended to refute physicalism, the belief that nothing is above the physical universe. It suggests that there are kinds of knowledge that cannot be measured or guessed. They must be learned through direct experience.
This article is part of a special series on the limits of knowledge.
The inability to share another’s subjective experience has implications for the world of medicine. It makes it hard to know…
