Garak is calm because he knows that they’re in the justice zone, where it’s impossible to commit a crime.

Thank you then! It seems like our debate stemmed from different definitions. Based on your definition of what constitutes AI, Data would absolutely count. By my definition, he is too advanced to be in the same category. But I get the impression that we would both agree that he is more advanced than any modern AI system. Once again, I’m sorry for coming across as condescending; I will have to choose my words more carefully in the future!

This seems to have descended into a debate on “what is consciousness”, which as I originally said, is a question that isn’t easy to answer. My point was that modern AI inherrently isn’t aware of what it’s saying, not that it couldn’t be defined as an intelligence. As far as I know, there’s no solid evidence to prove that it can. To finish, I would like to apologise if my initial comment came across as condescending. I didn’t mean to come across as such.

While I appreciate the philosophical take, it seems that you’ve misunderstood what AI is.

Have you ever been typing out a text and seen that your phone is recommending a list of words for you to select next? This is an example of AI. Your phone has been programmed with a list of words and a set probablility of one word following the other. For instance, if you type “I”, it will almost certainly suggest “am”, because there’s a high probabibility of that being correct. More advanced AI, like ChatGPT work the same way, only on a grander scale. It has no idea what its words mean, but through clever programming can create the illusion that it does.

Data on the other hand is explicitly stated to have a human-like consciousness. His posotronic brain is no different than a human brain, besides being artificial.

Naturally, this brings up the age old philosophical debate on “what actually is consciousness”. The simple answer is that we still don’t have a good explanation. You could argue that humans also follow an algorithm, just far more advanced, but I would argue that this doesn’t satisfactorily explain how humans are able to extrapolate their own ideas from abstract concepts.

Technically no, since data is a full on artificial life form. Modern AI is just programmed to create the illusion of sentience.

Eye lights were common back in the day because film stocks were extremely slow (needed a lot of light to expose properly). It’s always important to ensure eyes are well lit, since they’re so important for expression, even if it’s a bit overdone here.