Can Animals and Machines Be Persons?: A Dialogue

This work is thought experiment. It was assigned reading many years ago for a Science Fiction course I took, but managed to only really skim through it at the time. I'm a terribly slow reader, and as an English Major, History Minor, my reading load was such that I often had to choose to skim works, or skip some readings altogether. (Some day, I'll actually sit and read Hamlet.) It's a very short work, written in the early-mid 1980's. It's a dialogue, a court proceeding where a UN group is trying to determine the fate of the continued existence of two entities. A computer system known as AL (Model Turing 346). Heh. Al Turing. Get it? Yeah, you probably got, but just in case you don't Alan Turing, and his thought experiments (and counter proofs, etc) are all brought up throughout the course of the dialogue. That really shouldn't be surprising when talking about "thinking machines." The famous "Turing Test" is used, as well as the "Chinese Box" and one I was somewhat less familiar with, the "Cast of Millions." Also discussed were Thomas Paine, Mary Shelley, and her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. It presents some interesting arguments. Looking back on it, some thirty years later, you can see how the questions asked within, are ones that humanity has still not answered. Interesting from a science fictional point of view, in regards to what makes something a person. Though by design, no real conclusion is reached, and presumably, you are expected to go forth and make your own conclusions from the arguments presented. ( )

Review located at http://lupabitch.wordpress.com/2006/12/24/can-animals-and-machiens-be-persons-ju... ( )