Catherine took a few moments to frame a reply. “Here’s the problem. I’ll exaggerate a bit to make the point. Have you ever seen Grünewald’s Crucifixion?”

“Sorry, doesn’t ring any bells.”

Catherine downloaded an image of the centuries-old painting to her web. It showed Christ on the cross, limbs twisted in a grotesque posture of agony. “What does this make you think of?”

“Well, he has nails through his palms. Must be painful. That’s about it.”

“Right. That’s your theory of mind. As a human, you experience pain. You have memories of pain. You can create an image of Christ in your mind. You have the same physical structure, you assume Christ feels pain. So let me ask you: why don’t you assume that the cross is suffering? The same nails that go through Christ’s flesh are penetrating the cross.”

“But the cross doesn’t feel any pain.”

“Really? Have you ever been a cross?”

“Not personally, no.” Tatsuya grinned.

“That’s my point. The cross and the human body have different structures. Maybe the cross does suffer. We have different structures, so we can’t model its suffering mentally. ‘Thirsty’ equals ‘something to drink’—that’s knowledge a digital inference engine has no way of learning. It has to be programmed; it doesn’t know. That’s why a theory of mind is so important. AIs don’t have that ability yet.

(more…)