I define free will as an ability to create and implement plans that move the world toward a goal. That seems to fit the way the term is used with regard to humans.
You can do something willfully (construct and implement a plan with a goal in mind), be coerced (construct and implement a plan that achieves something other than your own goals), be restrained (construct a plan that could achieve a goal, and then not implement it), or be manipulated (implement a plan that you did not construct, and whose goal you might not understand; you might or might not like the result).
Most programs implement plans that they did not create to achieve goals they don’t understand in a world of which they don’t know. But I think that if a machine can create and carry out plans, it has a degree of freedom.
I define free will as an ability to create and implement plans that move the world toward a goal. That seems to fit the way the term is used with regard to humans.
You can do something willfully (construct and implement a plan with a goal in mind), be coerced (construct and implement a plan that achieves something other than your own goals), be restrained (construct a plan that could achieve a goal, and then not implement it), or be manipulated (implement a plan that you did not construct, and whose goal you might not understand; you might or might not like the result).
Most programs implement plans that they did not create to achieve goals they don’t understand in a world of which they don’t know. But I think that if a machine can create and carry out plans, it has a degree of freedom.