Jaccavrie II

"Quite a few Rangers were eremetic types... It was normal for them to think of their ships as elaborate tools. Daven Laure, who was young and outgoing, naturally thought of his as a friend."
-Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), pp. 709-794 AT p. 714.

The Rangers should know whether their ships are tools or friends. Later, the computer, robot or cybernetic brain controlling Laure's spaceship, Jaccavrie, chuckles. When an artifact chuckles, there are two possibilities:

the artifact has been programmed to simulate human responses including, when appropriate, amusement;

the artifact is conscious and is spontaneously expressing amusement.

If the Rangers have programmed an artifact to simulate human responses, then they know that that artifact is not conscious whereas, if they have constructed an artifact that duplicates brain functions, then they have the same reason to call that artifact conscious as they have to call the possessor of an organic brain conscious so there should be no mystery or ambiguity here.

Anderson projects our questions about artificial intelligence forward to a time when those questions should have been answered.