[martin1975]

Reminds me of one of my favorite ST: TNG episodes, "The Measure of a Man" - I urge anyone who read this note to watch this episode.

Ultimately it comes down to the question of whether machines, regardless of how smart they can be made to appear, even if they pass the Turing test with flying colors, are imbued with a soul.

In the episode, the Enterprise JAG officer, questions whether we humans "have souls."

C.S. Lewis felt that our souls transcend time/are immortal, whereas our bodies are temporal (https://checkyourfact.com/2019/09/18/fact-check-cs-lewis-sou...).

What we call "AI", is created in our image, e.g. training the model defines its range/category of responses.

We humans, if you'll believe it, are created in our Creator's image. By Creator, I do not mean our parents here.

FFT - what do you believe?

[DiogenesKynikos]

That's a great episode, but the question of whether anything has a soul is ill defined.

Until someone can come up with a rigorous definition of what a soul is, the question itself has no meaning.

[mvieira38]

There are plenty of very rigorous definitions of what a soul is, though. Judging by your screen name I take you're already familiar with Aristotle, so what's your issue with his hierarchy of souls (vegetative, sensitive and rational)? Each one of those is as well defined as it can be within his logical system.

[rhaps0dy]

Humans create AIs but humans also create other humans, through conception. And yet we do not say that humans were created by humans. Could we not say that AIs were created by God, by making the patterns of intelligence evident in Nature and letting other intelligences unravel them?

As you say, AIs also reflect the image of the Creator (through having intelligence). Maybe AIs can also reflect on the nature of Truth and connect with God, and thus a have a soul.