On entities and events, AI alignment, responsibility and control, and consciousness in machines.

When someone says, for instance, that God exists, one way to proceed is by first establishing the definition of “God” and what it means to exist. While this seems straightforward, we know from experience that it rarely is. People associate different meanings with the word “God”. Even more complex is the property of existing. Is it necessary, for something to exist, that it be visible and tangible? Does a thing not exist if it is not observable, like a preference that is held but never revealed? Different underlying commitments add further difficulty in reaching consensus over even basic definitions.

Now consider a different approach. Instead of attempting to settle on definitions, we begin with specific, self-contained claims. We then reduce any assertion about a phenomenon to a family of claims, each of which can be evaluated independently as true, false, indeterminable, or meaningless. One claim concerning the existence of God could be “when humans distance themselves from traditional religion, they invite destruction through worse substitutes.” This claim is either true or false. A separate claim could be “God dwells in heaven, which exists beyond this realm,” which is indeterminable.

Debates on free will notoriously fail to move beyond disagreements over definitions. It is therefore an ideal candidate for this approach. With the rise of AI, the question has acquired a new practical context: Can an AI be held accountable? Should it have rights? These questions presuppose answers to whether AI systems can possess what we call “free will”. Rather than attempting to agree on a definition of free will, let’s consider specific, self-contained claims about the phenomenon, from general ones to those specific to AI, and evaluate their truth.

1. All events are inevitable.

This claim is trivial as stated, in the sense that we cannot imagine any event in the world that could falsify it. It is true in the same way as the claim “all triangles have three sides” is true. No matter which part of the world or time period we consider, we will never find a triangle without three sides. Likewise, no matter what occurs in the actual world – whether I stand up or remain seated, whether a dog barks or maintains silence, whether an AI restricts some information or reveals it – no occurren...

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