Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

Courtney Klassen asks, Can computers think? And what does it truly mean, “to think”?

My answer to this is no. Computers, even advanced AI, cannot think as we humans do. Moreover, it is my opinion that no silicon-based machine can ever really think.

We can create machines that can ape intelligence, but they are simply providing an output for a given input. All computers, as they are designed today, are based on boolean logic. They are rapidly undergoing a series of steps and executing a program. If you put in the same inputs, you will get the same outputs. You can add randomness to change the output, but the process is the same. People are impressed with how large language models can answer questions, but no AI ever asks questions. It doesn’t know if it’s wrong, it doesn’t care if it is wrong, it can’t adapt and learn to correct itself if its wrong. There is no will. There are no desires. Anything that can be done with an integrated circuit could, in theory, be done with transistors, vacuum tubes, or even on paper. It would be many orders of magnitude slower and inefficient, but it could be done in theory. Computers and AI will get more impressive, but that doesn’t indicate true thought.

I know there are a lot of people who disagree with my views on this, but I think it is a fundamental limitation of anything digital.