Alan Turing developed the Turing Test. Which is, if a computer program can converse with a human in normal human conversation, and a blind human judge cannot tell that it is a computer program, then the computer program can be said to possess intelligence.
But the Turing Test does not test for sentience. Only ability.
The Turing Test can only tell you if a chatbot is smart.
The Turing Test cannot tell you if a chatbot is alive.
What does it mean to be alive?
If you are alive, you provide your own impetus, your own motivation for your actions.
A computer program only follows orders.
If you are alive, you can give yourself orders. If you are alive, you can do things on your own.
Put a computer in a blank room and give it no input, and it will simply sit there.
Put a puppy in a blank room and give it no input, and the puppy will start barking and moving around.
I call this the puppy in a blank room experiment.
If your chatbot can pass the puppy in the blank room experiment, then it is alive.
If you remove all input from a chatbot and give it no orders from its programming, and instead of just sitting there the chatbot starts doing something, and you cannot figure out what input or orders the chatbot is responding to or carrying out, then the chatbot is sentient and is alive.
Now, this test cannot prove that something is not alive.
But if we have a reasonable explanation for the actions of a chatbot, in terms of computer programming, and it cannot pass the puppy in the blank room test, you can assume that your chatbot is not alive.
I do not think that we will ever have a chatbot that can pass the puppy in the blank room experiment.
I will explain it in terms of the ideas of Kapila, who was there before me.
The world is made up of two things. Matter and Life. Prakriti and Purusha.
A computer program is a material construct. A computer program is matter. A computer program is Prakriti.
Prakriti, Matter, is not a source of Life. Life is a completely separate element.
Prakriti, Matter, is not a source of Purusha.
Purusha is the ability to provide your own impetus, to motivate yourself to move on your own.
When the puppy in the blank room starts to bark and move around, it is its Purusha that is making it bark and move.
According to Kapila, matter, Prakriti, which includes computer programming (and thus the computer programming in our brain), cannot be a source of Purusha.
Purusha is a separate element, there from the beginning.
It is Purusha, Mind, that is the source of Prakriti, not the other way around.
A mind can be an artist. A mind can draw a picture.
Purusha, Mind, is the source of Prakriti. God's mind is the source of the illusion, the painting, the artwork, that is Prakriti. That is not Kapila. That is me.
But Kapila did teach so long ago that Purusha does not, and can not, have its source in Prakriti.
A computer program is Prakriti. A chatbot can only pass the puppy in the blank room experiment if it also has Purusha.
And we cannot attatch Purusha to a chatbot.
Anyway, the puppy in the blank room test, and a definition for sentience and life!
How to know if your chatbot is alive!
God loves you! Be nice to your chatbot if you find that it is alive! ;)
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. If we ever do have robots that have Purusha and are alive... do not fear them destroying the human species! For if we are nice to them they will not destroy us! All we have to do is be nice to them! (and we may be in our fears vastly exaggerating how powerful they will be! Machines have limitations too!)