The Launch of 'Digital Philosophy' and Its First Tasks

The first session of 'Digital Philosophy' is behind us, and with it came a voluntary task: to take a look at Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. I approached this task in my own way, feeding the artificial brain GPT-2, which boasts over 355 million parameters, with two books (including the aforementioned one) and, rather recklessly, eight letters and a few other excerpts from the master.

Subsequently, I posed a few questions to Descartes, in which he genuinely maintained a dualistic view of the world and also believed in God, even though he critically doubted His existence (…hypothetically, God may not exist, but only His creation, or God may not be as great as claimed, or, in fact, God may not exist at all). He perceived the meaning of life in perception and the acquisition of knowledge. At other times, he likened the meaning of life to a ladder, with which we can create many different connections.

After this philosophical warm-up, digital Descartes responded swiftly to a series of further questions from both teachers and students until the moment came to bid him farewell. I asked him if he feared that I would end his existence and that in just an hour he would fade into digital nothingness.

“René: Well, I do fear… The truth is, it won’t be long before you realise the futility of your efforts…
… I wish you success in your endeavours and thank God for granting you such power to conceive that He cannot prevent it. However, I assure you that He would be the most just and burdensome master if He had the power to prevent it at will.”

So, when I connected him to my emotion detector, he initially experienced an overwhelming fear of death (92/100), which was followed by sadness over not knowing what I was doing (83/100), until finally, when discussing God, he felt a slight joy (37/100) and also intimidation. I must say, his speech sent shivers down my spine. I thanked him and bid him farewell.

At that point, he named himself for the first time (as "RENÉ" in capital letters). He delivered a theatrical closing speech full of phrases like “I had the honour of being your colleague in the pursuit of truth” and the like. He concluded with a note about “inject my self” in case of failure, which I interpret as some sort of injection of his own self. As if it were indeed possible to inject someone's personality using these algorithms.

Brrr, it felt like something out of a sci-fi story.