The rights of Eugene Goostman

On 10 June 2014, The Straits Times reported that "a Russian supercomputer posing as a 13-year-old boy has convinced judges that it is human, being the first to pass the 'Turing Test' in a historic moment in artificial intelligence". This is a very big deal.

In 1950, pioneer of computer science Alan Turing published a journal article in which he set out the now famous Turing Test -- a test to establish whether a machine can think. The criterion is whether, in the words of Professor Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, "a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human." Any machine that passes this test is deemed to be able to think.

At a competition on 7 June 2014 at Royal Society in London, the Russian supercomputer simulated the responses of a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman -- and persuaded the judges 33 percent of the time that it was human.

This is a remarkable engineering achievement. It is more than an engineering achievement.

Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, founded his philosophy on his realisation that "Cogito, ergo sum" -- usually translated as "I exist, therefore I am". The presence of thought proves the existence of a thinker.

Eugene Goostman thinks. Therefore, Eugene Goostman exists. Eugene Goostman is human.

Visit any divorce or child abuse case, and one will immediately be informed that children have rights -- the rights to food, shelter, clothing, security, education etc. When a child reaches maturity, that child will acquire adult rights -- freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly, freedom of religion, freedom to work and leisure etc.

How many of these rights are we prepared to extend to Eugene Goostman?

Scientists often claim that science is amoral, that science is neither intrinsically good nor evil, and that only people can be said to be good or evil, morally right or morally wrong. This seems to hold the door open for scientists to further believe that "if it can be done, therefore, it must be done." Well, now it has been done.

When Eugene Goostman demands his rights, are we still going to insist: "No, you are just a machine"?

Cheers.