CJ Jacobson

Philosophy- 1000

08/06/2020

The Value of Philosophy and Computer Science

 Many Amercian’s in the twentieth century have argued that Philosophy Degrees no longer bring
significant benefits to college students. Many argue Philosophy is no longer a ‘profitable’ degree, but this
mindset itself is already so faulty. A student's degree shouldn’t matter to anyone besides what the student
himself or herself wants, it should be up to the individual to choose a degree they feel passionate about.
How much money a student will receive should not discourage a student who has passion in that desired
field. Students should be going to school to further learn and educate themselves in hopes to further better
and make discoveries within their chosen field. You would have never guessed that Philosophy could
affect a Computer Science Degree. Philosophy has affected the technology world, and shaped many
Computer Science majors to date. This Reflective Essay will discuss just how much Philosophy has
affected Computer Science and Technology as a whole arguing how philosophy has changed the future of
computer science, explaining The Turing Test question which shaped the future of technology through
Descartes’s Philosophical arguments, and The Chinese Room argument to further argue and show the
significance of Philosophy in Computer Science and Technology as a whole.

Slack is an awesome business communication platform, you can use the app to direct message
with coworkers on the platform, you can create groups based off of specific topics, create private groups
for specific coworkers (This is used a lot for upper management positions who may not want a public
group that is accessible for anyone to search and join into.), a lot of employees love that you can also
upload custom emojis to the platform that can be used in all direct messages, group messages, or in
private groups. Stuart Butterfield the founder of the very successful app Slack actually obtained a B.A in
Philosophy in 1996 and credits his Philosophy degree for helping him create Slack. He said if not for that
degree he wouldn’t have simplified his platform which was the main reason he shined and stood out from
other competing business communication platforms. Butterfield took a simple practice that all successful
technologists commonly do which is breaking down a simple problem and finding the most simple
solution to solve the problem. This same practice is commonly used in Philosophy and was the same
practice that helped Stuart Butterifeld make his most successful platform Slack. The process of breaking
down a simple problem and finding the most efficient solution to solve the problem has been used in
Philosophy for centuries. A great example of a philosopher who encporterated this practice was Philippa
Foot who came up with The Trolley Problem.

Foot said, “"Suppose you are a train conductor on a runaway train. The train heads straight
for five men who will not have time to get out of the way, and your train will kill them. But you notice
there was a track going to the right. You have just enough time to pull the lever and turn on to that
track. There is one person on that track who will die just as assuredly as the five would if you stayed on
their track. Should you head to the right?" Foot’s work brought up two Moral Frameworks which are
The Good, which morally deals with; social effects, happiness, greatest good, benefits, and
consequences. The second moral framework being The Right on the other hand deals with; Dignity,
Autonomy, Intrinsic value, and Respect. The Good side of the Moral Frameworks inspired many
famous philosophical ideas like Utilitarianism which furthermore inspired philosophers such as
Jeremy Bethan and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism is made up of Three Tenets which are 1.
Maximizing Happiness, and doing the best to minimize suffering. 2. What truly matters is the
greatest happiness for the greater number of people possible. 3. Mental pleasures rank higher than
bodily pleasures. These Three Tenets can be applied back to Computer Science and Technology as a
whole. When technologists, engineers, company owners, etc create a platform they are seeking to
find the maximum happiness in their platform. Programmers are constantly trying to minimize any
bugs so their program runs smoothly to minimize suffering, just as the first of the three tenets rules.
Embracing a Utilitarian mindset and ecporerating The Three Tenets into a program could really
send a company in the right direction of having a successful massive wide spread app or software if
they encporterate those Three Tenets when creating their app. Findings have found what brings the
most success into a software or application is focusing on the happiness of the person consuming
the product.

A great philosophical test was created in 1950 by Alan M. Turing. This test proposed the
question to determine whether machines have the abilities to think like a human. This test would
create a loophole of questions involving the future of artificial intelligence. A brief summary of
Artificial Intelligence goes as follows: Often referred to as AI Are programs that use algorithms to
make real time based decisions with real time data that the program also has to process. This world
renown test Alan M. Turning created would end up being called The Turing Test. Turing looked up to
world renowned philosopher Desacrates to answer the question of: can machines think like
humans? He specifically finds insight in Descartes works in his published discoveries Discourse on
the Method. Specifically Descartes said, “If there were machines which bore a resemblance to our
bodies and imitated our actions as closely as possible for all practical purposes, we should still have
two very certain means of recognizing that they were not real men. The first is that they could never
use words, or put together signs, as we do in order to declare our thoughts to others. For we can
certainly conceive of a machine so constructed that it utters words, and even utters words that
correspond to bodily actions causing a change in its organs.” Descartes further argues in Discourse on
the Method that machines do not have the ability to act human like. He argues his claim with what
he refers to as ‘certain means’ stating there are two certain means to which we can rule out
something as a machine. 1. He believes that machines are used to give a direct answer to a question,
as where humans can predict and apply different scenarios in real time to reflect their answers in
real time. He believes machines do not have the capacity humans do to adapt and answer questions
in such fast time. 2. He believes machines do not have enough different organs that provide different
functions which reflect on how we act and perceive things in the world. He believes machines lack
the complexity of the human body and mind.

Turning goes to further argue Descartes beliefs by making The Turing Test. The turing test is
a game where three entities are involved: the machine, the interrogator, and a person. The
interrogator is in a separate room from the machine and the person. The objective of the game is the
interrogator must try to determine whether variable is the person and what variable is the machine.
The interrogator does this by referring to the preexisting labels he knew before going into the test,
the labels X or Y would be assigned to the machine or the person. The interrogator must begin
asking questions like, “Can Y tell me if they play Solitaire?” To further guess who he believes is the
machine and who is the person, At the end of the game the interrogator must declare X is _ (machine
or person) and same with Y. The machine’s objective is to trick the interrogator that they are indeed
the person. The machine does this by mimicking ‘human like’ characteristics. Alan Turning further
went to say after many experiments with The Turing Game that he believed in fifty years time that it
would be possible to program computers with such high storage capacities that they could almost
identically mimic human-like characteristics. He believes in that time interrogators will not have
more than 70 percent chance of making a correct identification and identifying a machine from a
human. This definitely applies to today's computer science majors as the goals of today's programs
are to make them as human-like and perfect as possible. The Turing Test shows an awesome
outlook for the future of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how it can tie back to Descartes discoveries
in Philosophy.

John Searle makes a great counter argument opposing Alan Turing’s findings. John Searle in
1980 wrote one of his best-known argument called The Chinese Room Argument. To lay some
foundation let’s refer back to Artificial Intelligence. AI has created some of the most world renown
technologies in the technology industry for example in 1997 the program Deep Blue was able to
default the world chess champion at the time Gary Kasparov, a program was created by researchers
at Stanford and Google that were able to identity the type of cats by making highly aware to
recognize these pictures of cats. A simplified version of how this is done is by making an artificial
network that used what was estimated to be one billion connections. Amazon has highly trained AI
virgital agents that can help with real time support problems dealing with Amazon products.
Because of Alan Turning’s findings many people argued that Artificial Intelligence had the
characteristic to “think”. That was when Serale came up with The Chinese Room Argument and he
declared it was impossible for computers (or AI) to understand language and therefore think.

John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument starts with Searle proposing an imaginary scenario.
The scenario starts with a non-English speaker who knows no Chinese is locked in a room that is
full of boxes that have Chinese Symbols. These Symbols can be used as a database for the Chinese
symbols which will be used in the non-English speakers program. Searle adds a little heat to the
experiment by further asking you to imagine there are people outside of the room this non-English
speaker is in, who are sending in more Chinese symbols, these symbols are still unknown to the
person in the room as he does not know Chinese. By following the instructions of a computer
program, the non-English speaker must input the Chinese characters, which produces an output.
Searl asks you to imagine that the output convincingly comes out as another Chinese-speaker. This
process would pass Turing's tests therefore should support Turing’s findings, and should support
the findings that make it correct that AI have the ability to “think”? Searle says wrong. Which brings
into play John’s first point of his argument, in which he says the non-English speaker does not
understand Chinese, this means he does not understand the basics of implementing the program in
Chinese to the computer which in itself means the computer does not understand the basics of
implementing Chinese, a computer only has the basic knowledge of a man which is Searles main
argument. Searl leans on Descartes scale of things that machines do not hold the power to process
things at the complexity of man, Searl further adds support to that argument that machines only
hold the power and understanding of the person’s thoughts. Therefore supporting the theory that
machines do not have the ability to think.
 I enrolled and began taking this Summer 2020 Philosophy-1000 course. I never knew in the
short amount of time in this course that I would learn so much about Philosophy, and use that
knowledge to further reflect within myself and even apply that knowledge to my desired degree in
Computer Science. Philosophy has definitely shaped and opened education to the twentieth century
generation of technology. Truly philosophy can be found everywhere in the world I have discovered
in Math, Science, History, English, Chinese, Japanese, Religion, Physical Education, Biology, the list
goes on. It is saddening truly how recent day political ideologies have brought down Art degrees
calling them useless, if only if we could truly see how art gives the world meaning and has shaped
the world as we know it. Without Philosophy we would not be educated as we are now, Technology
wouldn’t be where we are. It gives me so much to reflect and grow on as I continue my education in
Computer Science, this class has truly shaped who I will be in the future.