Abstract
Over four years ago, we developed and implemented an upper division general studies course. “The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.” The course has since been team taught every semester by a computer scientist and a philosopher. Here, we draw on our four years' experience with the course to discuss its impact on computer science majors, for whom we feel that it fulfills two main purposes. First, having technical material presented within the coherent framework provided by this course offers students an accessible and consistent context. Secondly, an examination of the philosophical aspects of this material enables the students to look at their own discipline from without for the first time. We contend that a course of this nature neatly rounds off the education of computer scientists.
- Boden, Margaret. The Philosophy of Artificial Intellizence. Oxford: OUP, 1990. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Denning, Peter et al. "Computing as a Disciphne: Final Repoit of the ACM Task Force on the Core Curriculum of Computer Science." New York: ACM, August 1988.Google Scholar
- Descartes, Ren~ (1637) Discourse on Method, in 'Discourse on Method' and 'Meditations', trans, by Laurence J. Lafleur. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960,Google Scholar
- Hodges, Andrew Alan Turing" The Enigma. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- McCarthy, John "Mathematical Logic in Artficiat intelligence." Daedalus, Winter 1988, pp. 297-311. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Searle, John R. "Minds, Brains, and Programs." The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. (1980), 3. Also reprinted in many anthologies such as Boden (1990) pp. 57-88.Google Scholar
- Snow, C, P. The Two Cultures and the Scienttfic Revolution.Cambridge' Cambridge Univ. Press, }{959.Google Scholar
- Turing, Alan M. "Computing Machinery and InteJligence," Mind, October, 1950, 59:433-460. Reprinted in Boden (1990) pp. 40- 66.Google Scholar
Index Terms
The philosophy of artificial intelligence: a general studies course with particular benefits to computer science majors
Recommendations
The philosophy of artificial intelligence: a general studies course with particular benefits to computer science majors
SIGCSE '94: Proceedings of the twenty-fifth SIGCSE symposium on Computer science educationOver four years ago, we developed and implemented an upper division general studies course. “The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.” The course has since been team taught every semester by a computer scientist and a philosopher. Here, we draw on our ...
Moral Philosophy of Artificial General Intelligence: Agency and Responsibility
Artificial General IntelligenceAbstractThe European Parliament recently proposed to grant the personhood of autonomous AI, which raises fundamental questions concerning the ethical nature of AI. Can they be moral agents? Can they be morally responsible for actions and their ...






Comments