Does he have a Mind?

Of course, there are going to be those who will disagree with the following views. However, we tried to derive these views based on a materialistic view, and the discussions in class.

Does he have a mind?

Materialistically, the mind is the brain. Our robot does have a brain, made up of the Arduino micro-controller and the program. Therefore, Ultron does have a mind.

Is he intelligent?

As per the discussion and conclusions in the class, Ultron is, in fact, intelligent. He is able to interact with his environment; he learns the landscape of the board, remembers it, and then makes decisions based on what he has learned.

Is he Conscious?

Ultron is not concious. Consciousness requires, among other things, creativity, emotions, and free will. While Ultron does learn from his surroundings and make decisions based on what he learns, he is incapable of deviating from the program we have laid out for him. He does not have the capability to think for himself, or come up with new ideas. For example, if he was conscious, he might get tired of the same old program all of the time. He might decide to try to break free, and try to run off the board. However, he simply does not have the capability, nor the independence, to do such things on his own.

Other Conclusions

After working on the logic for Ultron we gained a higher respect for the human brain. It’s amazing how much planning and programming it took to replicate basic logic that comes quite easily for humans. In no way did our work convince us that machines will never have consciousness. However,  it certainly did provide us with an awareness of how difficult it will be to attempt to create consciousness, or even replicate the human brain.