Barry Smith
University at Buffalo
Critic Current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made
Barry Smith is a philosopher at the University at Buffalo known for formal ontology and for leading the development of Basic Formal Ontology, a framework used across biomedical informatics. His stance on artificial intelligence is skeptical in a specific way. With Jobst Landgrebe he wrote Why Machines Will Never Rule the World (Routledge, 2022), arguing that human language and cognition arise from complex adaptive systems whose variance cannot be captured by current mathematical modeling, so machine general intelligence does not arrive.
The book’s Digital Immortality chapter applies the thesis to mind uploading directly. A system that cannot carry general intelligence cannot carry a person, so the uploaded-mind promise fails at its foundation rather than at its engineering margins. This site covers the argument in the digital immortality under German scrutiny analysis.
His position on this site’s scale is Critic, grounded in the book’s own argument. The substrate independence claim this site develops must engage the complexity objection he co-authored, because it attacks the possibility of the emulation before the question of experience is reached.
Known for. Formal ontology, Basic Formal Ontology, co-authoring Why Machines Will Never Rule the World
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Jobst LandgrebeAI systems entrepreneur and philosopherCo-authoring Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, the complexity argument against machine general intelligence
- Ludger JansenRuhr-Universität BochumPhilosophy of mind and religion, co-editing Seele digital
- Rebekka A. KleinMartin-Luther-Universität Halle-WittenbergPhilosophy and ethics of technology and religion, co-editing Seele digital
- Michel BitbolCNRSPhenomenology and quantum physics, the critique of objectivist reduction, first-person knowledge as irreducible, collaboration with Claire Petitmengin
- Ned BlockDepartment of Philosophy, New York UniversityDistinction between Phenomenal and Access Consciousness (1995), Blockhead argument against behavioral tests, The Border Between Seeing and Thinking (2023)
- Selmer BringsjordRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteLogicist AI and consciousness, skepticism about behavioral tests for machine minds, the RAIR Lab, formal arguments against superintelligence claims
Barry Smith is listed with the other critics and skeptics, who hold that current evidence and current methods do not support the claims being made. The positions themselves are set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.