From the readings, what is artificial intelligence and how is it similar or different from what you consider to be human intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is exactly what it sounds like: artificial. That being said, there is no doubt that it is powerful. Machines can mimic intelligence by executing algorithms that maximize their probability to succeed at some task. For example, a chess AI will make a certain move because it has calculated that particular move to be the best chance for it to win the game.

Are AlphaGo, Deep Blue, and Watson proof of the viability of artificial intelligence or are they just interesting tricks or gimmicks?

I think as time goes on, true artificial intelligence becomes more and more viable. The reason I can’t say all three mentioned technologies prove its viability is because, consider this snippet from one of the articles:

Deep Blue, for example, combined more than 8,000 different factors in the function it used to evaluate board positions. Deep Blue didn’t just say that one rook equals five pawns. If a pawn of the same color is ahead of the rook, the pawn will restrict the rook’s range of movement, thus making the rook a little less valuable.

–Why AlphaGo is Really Such a Big Deal

This, to me, is not proof of the validity of artificial intelligence, because it involved a ton of human knowledge about the subject matter to succeed. However, the same article talks about the neural networks behind AlphaGo, and that is a whole different matter to me. If machine learning technology gets to the point where you can just tell a computer: “Learn how to do X, Y, or Z” and just feed in some training data, then AI might become more similar to human intelligence. Obviously a computer cannot truly “feel” emotion, but with enough social interactions and training data to learn from, the emotions could be mimicked as well as the corresponding reactionary moves.

Finally, could a computing system ever be considered a mind? Are humans just biological computers? What are the ethical implications are either idea?

This is a difficult question to answer. I feel like this question is somewhat similar to asking, “If you separated the brain from the body, and connected it to a bunch of machines, could it ever think as a normal human?” I’m part of the group that says no, although it is difficult for me to explain why. While I was sitting here typing this blog, I got distracted by all sorts of things. Occasionally these were things that would cause me to stop and think: “Should I do laundry before tomorrow? Why is my cup of coffee on the floor? This song would be really cool to learn how to play sometime”. I didn’t act on any of those, and they didn’t really contribute towards an end goal. I’d like to think that everybody would have different thoughts even in the exact same situation. I believe that the soul is part of what makes us who we are, and that the body cannot live without it. From a purely spiritual standpoint, I would argue that a computing system could never be considered a mind. That being said, I do think that a computing system could mimic a mind. It can learn from its surroundings, make decisions, react to physical and emotional stimuli, and more. But no, I don’t believe that a machine could ever be considered a mind.