[FRIAM] Free will—ghost in the machine or just clever wiring?

[steve smith]

On 6/10/25 9:44 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> Consider a robot with sensors roughly comparable to humans.
>
> The robot has access to all the energy it wants.  It has a large 
> memory and generous computing resources.   It has executive processes 
> with onboard state-of-the-art LLMs to access vast information and can 
> run a wide variety of appropriate programs to plan its next actions. 
>  It can use the LLMs to write new programs.  It can tune or fine-tune 
> the LLMs constantly from new data.   It remembers its actions and 
> their consequences.   It has video and audio recordings of every 
> moment.  It has time series data of its sensors since it was 
> activated.   Because of its general self-tuning ability, any guidance 
> from its authors (like for the LLM) can be overridden.    It has 
> americium-241 onboard hardware random number generator that drives its 
> LLM sampling and any other stochastic algorithm.
>
> Does this robot have free will?  Why or why not?
>
Probably not unless it's brain is /positronic/.

For a /proof by anecdote/, read the corpus of Asimov's work.  ;/

Then go release an Orca into the wild and holler "Free Willy" at the top 
of your lungs.  If you survive being arrested and convicted for your 
declaration of putative "public exposure", then note that the entire 
global population are taking up the practice of head-butting 
sailboats....   free will much?

    The perils of Free Will(y)?


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