AI - Do humans think algorithmically?

Show a baby/infant a fox or cat or a picture of a fox or cat and they will say "dogie". It takes a bit of training before they say "Urocyon cinereoargenteus" or "Felis catus".

And how long did it take evolution to develop that capability?

We already build systems, both smart and dumb, that are designed to commit suicide, or as we prefer to say, self-destruct. This is often done in weapons systems to keep their capabilities from falling into enemy hands. But also, many software algorithms have a module designed so that if there is an improper attempt to activate them they don’t just say “access denied” but initiate a routine to erase themselves. I worked on several satellite systems that, as they neared end of life, would de-orbit into deep ocean reentry, i. e., would drown themselves, to assure the technology could not be recovered by unfriendlies (i. e., Russia).Almost all biological cells, from bacteria to the cells in our bodies, have a built-in genetic routine to self-destruct through the process of apoptosis (Greek for self poisoning). So, when one of our cells in infected by a bacterium or virus or becomes precancerous it has the ability to detect that its reproductive process is screwed up , hijacked by the invader, and doesn’t just destroy itself, but also sends out chemical signals, cytokines, to attract leucocytes to come over and clean up the debris. This is happening to thousands of the cells for each of us at all times. Imagine if our society worked that way: each for us would be testing ourselves several time a day for Covid-19 infection, and as soon as we found we were infected we would down a dose of strychnine, but not before calling the suicide hot line to come pick up the body for incineration. This would certainly quell the spread of Covid-19, but since we are constantly being invaded by hundreds of pathogens, it would also quell the existence of humanity. Our cells, of which we have about 30 trillion and can be replaced in a few hours, are more expendable.So, yes, an advanced AI/android society, optimized for survival of the society itself, would certainly have latent suicidal tendencies. And as with our technological systems, biological cells, and those software routines, there would most probably be frequent unintended incidents of self destruction. There might even be Jim Jones and Heaven’s Gate style mass suicides.

Our current understanding of mental processes is still far too primitive to be able to delineate the differences (if such differences even exist) between a conscious act of suicide due to depression and a self destruct action of a computer program. The fact that there are antidepressant drugs, simple molecules with known formula and structure, that may intercede to avoid such suicide might suggest that the neurological programs that lead to depression and suicide could contain “if……then…..” subroutines.

Could you give one or two examples of this. I have a physics background, so details are fine. (Also, I'm a reductionist, not by rational deduction, but by necessity since I'm simply too simple minded to understand anything that can't be reduced to basic causes.)Would an airplane made of legos be an emergent property?

Am I missing something? Not having well defined, i.e., single valued, values of a property is not the same as not having that property. The distance from LA to NY is a range of values. But that range is defined and LA and NY do have the property of being some distance apart. The set of IQs of people posting on EvsC (apparently a bimodal distribution) has many values, but is still a defined property.