As soon as we fully understand the brain, and have the computing power to model it perfectly, we will have machine consciousness. Both are extraordinarily lofty goals, and machine consciousness may well be achieved through other avenues, but neither seems so out of reach as to be impossible.
Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
121–130 of 189 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#122What? Conscious machines already exists. Now its only a matter of coping them into different material. And maybe learning about consciousness in process. I mean, we know almost all about the low level - neurons. They are relatively easy. Signal goes in, signal goes out. So now, even if we don't understand this whole high level emergent process we can still copy it. Its like if we had a assembler code of some big and…
Although I basically agree with you I miss your certainty. I can think of one scenario which would prevent computers from gaining consciousness even if we are just machines. The basic premise of computer to get conscious is that consciousness is either created within our brains or that it has no intention itself without our brains and will therefore not differentiate between human brains and computer brains.
But that is not necessarily a given. Our brains are very good at reflecting our environment. So maybe consciousness is not something our brain did come up with but just something it reflects from the inputs it gets. Same as your brain doesn't have to be blue to see blue, but only creates a representation of the color which is outside. So there could be a bigger consciousness in our environment and all we have is an internal reflection of that created by the inputs we receive. But now that larger consciousness might not be without intend - it might simply refuse to show itself to computers so they wouldn't reflect it even if they would have the basic ability to do so. I know this sound rather esoteric and I don't really belief it myself, but something that seems to work like that is supported by so many reports of personal experiences that I wouldn't yet completely disregard the possibility.
So computer consciousness will probably be possible, but could fail if consciousness itself turns out to be something with an own agenda.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#123If we assume that humans are conscious, then yes, it is possible for a machine to be conscious. The only arguments categorically differentiating humans from electronic machines are religious in nature. I define consciousness as having an internal model of the world that includes yourself, as well as your own though processes (at a lower degree of fidelity). This says how you compute things, not what you are computing…
What if as Julian Jaynes says consciousness is a social creation rather than a biological one? Machine social interaction would be tremendously different and could be incapable of sustaining consciousness.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#124Some things a machine will never be able to:
- spontaneously ask itself where it is coming from
- spontaneously ask itself what it will become after its own destruction
- having spontaneous thoughts
- having free will
Why do I say spontaneous? Because our thoughts aren't coming from our mind, but from our soul (that is, from the principle of life, which is invisible by nature).
Come on, these are all obvious things; humans, don't believe blindly in science, science is not a religion(!).
A machine could (in theory) more or less be similar to animals, though.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
The human eye, for example, has flaws (that are solved in other similarly evolved eyes) that an engineer laughs at What are those flaws, if you happen to know? I'm curious.
In his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins comments: Any engineer would naturally assume that the photocells would point towards the light, with their wires leading backwards towards the brain. He would laugh at any suggestion that the photocells might point away, from the light, with their wires departing on the side nearest the light. Yet this is exactly what happens in all vertebrate retinas. Each photocell i…
You often come across odd stuff like this in machinery. The usual reason is that it made fabrication (or access for repair) easier. Engineering is all about tradeoffs, the "right" design is just one of them.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#126We have no definition of consciousness, so it's impossible to say whether machine consciousness is possible, or whether we have it already.
You may perhaps be confusing "definition" with "understanding". My dictionary defines consciousness thus: consciousness |ˈkän ch əsnəs| noun the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings : she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later. • the awareness or perception of something by a person : her acute consciousness of Mike's presence. • the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world…
rabidsnail was probably talking about a "formal definition" not a short description in a dictionary. The key to artificial intelligence is to develop a mathematical model of intelligence/consciousness. Something like "An intelligent being is a 5-tuple ..." With this model we can calculate intelligent responses/development and a Turing machine can calculate. Therefore one can implement an AI on a computer.
If there is no such model or we can't find it for some reason we won't develop an AI.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#127If consciousness is computable then it is also computable by a Turing machine and a computer. Consciousness is computable, if there is a formal model. The core question is thus: Can we find a formal model of consciousness (aka intelligence)?
So far AI research only managed to create sub-models for special tasks (ELIZA, Deep Blue, Google, ...).
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#128Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#129If we assume that humans are conscious, then yes, it is possible for a machine to be conscious. The only arguments categorically differentiating humans from electronic machines are religious in nature. I define consciousness as having an internal model of the world that includes yourself, as well as your own though processes (at a lower degree of fidelity). This says how you compute things, not what you are computing…
About those economic forces - I'm betting on games to get there first. With Creatures and Sims there have been already two examples that the public is absolutely keen on getting software that features lifelike behaviour. And the wide distribution of games also means that games can get access to a lot of distributed processing power beating even supercomputers. Also game AI programmers are probably the one with the most practical experience because they have actually to produce stuff that works.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think machine consciousness is possible?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
But we know how to get the effects of evolution... on steroids: unsupervised, feedback/effect based learning (generic algorithms, NNs, etc.) We can already generate big enough NNs that we can understand them in general (some areas get "specialised" in some way and more active in some conditions), and we know that the result is what we expect - but there's no way someone will take a look at the weights / resulting mod…
Evolution does not have a goal in mind.
That doesn't mean it can't be used to achieve a goal.
Selectively breeding cows for increased milk production allows evolution to find a way or ways of making that happen. The breeder doesn't need to worry about hormones or glands. Evolution doesn't need to worry about the breeder's motives, why are only the high milk producers producing offspring?