"To ascribe beliefs, free will, intentions, consciousness, abilities, or
wants to a machine is legitimate when such an ascription expresses
the same information about the machine that it expresses about a
person. It is useful when the ascription helps us understand the
structure of the machine, its past or future behaviour, or how to repair
or improve it. It is perhaps never logically required even for humans,
but expressing reasonably briefly what is actually known about the
state of the machine in a particular situation may require mental
qualities or qualities isomorphic to them. Theories of belief, knowledge
and wanting can be constructed for machines in a simpler setting than
for humans, and later applied to humans. Ascription of mental qualities
is most straightforward for machines of known structure such as
thermostats and computer operating systems, but is most useful when
applied to entities whose structure is incompletely known.” (John McCarthy, 1979) https://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/ascribing.pdf
la64710|1 year ago
Ascribing mental qualities to machines poses several challenges. Ethically, it blurs the line between human and machine, raising questions about rights and responsibilities1. Philosophically, it complicates the understanding of mind by attributing human-like qualities to non-human entities23. Practically, it can lead to misunderstandings about the capabilities and limitations of machines, as they do not truly possess beliefs or intentions like humans do56. Additionally, this practice can result in a misuse of language, potentially misleading people about the nature of artificial intelligence
And lastly from http://www.cse.msu.edu/~cse841/papers/McCarthy.pdf
We must be careful to not ascribe mental qualities to machines that do not have that.