Did you just compare the human brain to that of a programmed chip? We don't even understand our own brain 100%, so tell me, how do we equate a programmed brain to ours? Robots will never truly, be human-like before we crack the code to our brain (so not in the near future) No offense, I think you pulled the trigger a bit too fast here

Indeed, the Turing test and the Chinese room test are only tests of equivalency, the underlying question of intelligence vs a perfect illusion of intelligence remains to be solved. Some argue that as the illusion of intelligence approaches perfect the importance of the distinction waivers.

The problem Ytrumz, is that we don't know if the Synth component is the whole of their brain and thus their intelligence is wholly mechanical, or more likely it is just a mechanical part of an otherwise organic brain.

The Synth component is not particularly large and if it is an anologue to the Android component in Fo3 then it can be removed surgically with no harm to the Synth. All implication is that the Synth component is not their entire brain.

And that is the issue, if Synths have grey matter, as it is likely, then comparing them to robots is a false equivalence. A certain cyborg had chips in his brain too.

If the Synth component is just an IO device for facilitating memory manipulation then the problem remains of when a Synth gains self-awareness, whether a brain bereft of learned experience is self-aware or whether preloading memory counts as learned experience.

Oh but we do.

Edited to insert spoiler tags

Amen. I would side with the Railroad, because I see where they're coming from, but then again, I could side with the BOS and use the gen 3's as target practice. Or I could not pick a side and continue blowing [censored] up without anything holding me back

wow the censorship software is strong with this one. It literally just censored "s * * *" (minus spaces)

I run on the folliwing logic:


If something displays enough apparant sapience to appreciably (mentally) pass as human, then they are, as far as I can determine, sapient.


I cannot say for certain that ANY human apart from myself is sapient, and neither can anyone else. To be certsin of that, I would need to somehow experience life as they do, and visa versa. If I operate under the assumption that humans are sapient, then I logically must assume that //anything// that displays similar levels of sapience as being sapient as well, unless I am given doubts by how it behaves.

Ytrumz, I don't quite understand, are you saying the chip is the Synth's complete mind and intelligence or are you saying that Synths have organic brains of which the component is just a part?

Because if Synths do have organic brain matter then they can't be compared to a computer or robot, though they are both manufactured.

Here's a hypothetical though:

Lets say we have two AI systems. One of whom can converse reasonably well with humans to the point of being passable as a human itself given a blind test. The other lacks the ability to communicate with humans adequately or at all.

The first is simply a pre-programmed response system, which can fool a human into thinking its conversing with another human, but lacks any meaningful understanding of what its doing or saying. The second system, is a fully sapient AI with intelligence equal in all ways to humans.

Which is the more sapient AI construct?

The second. The moment you stick it in a robot body, that's when the first one fails spectacularly, as the second one can find alternate methods of communication... or at the very least act a lot more flexibly than a dumb robotic arm.


I said "behavioral" so as to not rule out things with obviously nonhuman bodyplans, not to pass the turing test.

I don't disagree, but what if that construct never gets the chance to communicate with humans? What if it just lacks all ability to show itself *as* sapient. We probably both agree that doesn't change its status as a sapient entity.

Which therein lies the problem of using "How close does it behave to us?" as a metric for measuring sapience. Hell that doesn't even just extend to AI's either, its a fact of biology too. If there exists some sort of alien lifeform out there so completely out of our realm of understanding, then how can we begin to comprehend how sapient it is if we don't even know what we're looking at? Or looking for?