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This poll would have been better with another option. Yes, spirituality is "mumbo-jumbo", but I do not think it can be discarded so cavalierly. To understand any culture, including the one you came from (and I would address any AI we create as "coming from" human culture), you simply must understand its mythologies. "Understanding" does not equal "believing", but it also goes way beyond "discarding". Even speaking from an atheistic perspective now, mythology, religion, and spirituality have been - and continue to be - major contributing factors to our experience and awareness. To discard it utterly would make history a puzzle at best, incomprehensible at worst.
The Transhuman movement that exists at the moment has already developed a spiritual component. The Prophet Ray Kurzweil, spreads the word of the coming God (A.I).
I understand spirituality to be a natural impulse that is not just confined to 'homo sapiens sapiens', but was evident in 'homo sapiens neanderthalus', and is evident in other land mammals such as Elephants, so it will definitely be present in a post human future, but hopefully, religion, the control and warping of spirituality for political / social ends, will not be present.
If an AI could be developed (or developed itself) with a consciousness like ours, it would have spirituality. If AI consciousness was different than ours or AI's simply never develop consciousness they probably wouldn't have spirituality. I imagine an AI which had no guidelines like ours in the sense of morality (learned through religion or encoded in genetics), simply wouldn't do anything it wasn't programmed to do. Spirituality seems to be closely tied with doing things in the world outside what you are "supposed" to do or "designed" to do, I don't think you could have it without free will. David Hume said "You can't make an ought out of an is" I think it follows that you can't make something that functions only on "is" produce its own "ought" concepts.
Don't abandon the word: it has too many positive connotations for too many people. Think of the most thrilling experience you've ever had (assuming you're still glad you had it), and associate the word "spiritual" with that.
Don't abandon the word: it has too many positive connotations for too many people. Think of the most thrilling experience you've ever had (assuming you're still glad you had it), and associate the word "spiritual" with that.
I took the word "posthuman" to mean "after humans are extinct". In which case it's just a nonsensical question. We would neither know nor care whether AI, or any other lifeform is or is not "spiritual".
Scientists and explorers of the future will likely discover that spirituality, serving as a powerful, driving force, is a survival mechanism that propels certain living organism, of which humans are one, to learn and understand their environment to the extent that it fosters survival. Those who learn the lesson enjoy better success as individuals and as a species. Our sense of wonder, our need to know, are manifestations of this force. AIs programmed to respond to external and internal stimuli accordingly, whether through a facsimilar of the "wonder" animals feel or through some other force, likely will stand a better chance of proloning their existence individually and as a group of AIs, too.
The word spiritual get's to tangled up with religion. They also can mean different things. This is why I agree with cybernoeticman :)*
Voted "I'm not sure". Whether or not superintelligent AIs will possess something like our spirituality requires a bigger mind (or a smaller question).
how about a better choice: the word "spirituality" is one hell of ambiguous mess. Plenty of atheists can feel "spiritual," but it's a loaded word that doesn't help the discussion until you define it.
So my vote: none of the above.
It's preposterous to dismiss human history when attempting to create a 'better' human future.