Algorithmically, Hypothetically Speaking... Can we create a program with "freewill"?

Question

We can certainly program a degree of artificial intelligence.
We can program responsiveness. An intelligent choice between desirable and undesirable choices based on experience. {Go near baby, result tipped over, avoid baby}
We can even add in randomness (ie program occasionally is makes random response based a on clock time random number generator)

...but can we create a program with "freewill"?

(in the baby example the program type I imagine you still has an original instruction that set the value of being tipped as bad)

LOL win 95 does seem to have some evil semblance of freewill.

Answer 1

I don't think humans have free will.

Answer 2

It may not be possible to program an absolute degree of free will into a machine.

Then again, it may be equally impossible for humans to have an absolute degree of free will.

From a practical perspective, if you can program a machine to have a behavioral model so complex that no human being can reliably predict what it will "decide" to do, this is functionally equivalent to programming it to have free will.

Other humans may have no more free will than this either.

A thinking machine, mechanical or biological, doesn't have to have an absolutely free will, to be indistinguishable from a machine that does, to you.

Answer 3

It's easy to write a program that has free will. It is in Basic language.

1 Print "What do you want?"
input a$
if str$(a$,"free will")> 0 then
print "Yes, I have free will."
else print "I refuse to respond to that."
end if
goto 1


The program will claim that it has free will. Is it lying? How is this different from a human claiming s/he as free will?

Answer 4

It's not programming.. Since, programming is "creating a set of instructions", while if there's freewill, it means, no one instructed you... Scientifically and philosophically.. No "algorithmically".. (^^,)