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Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

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Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#11

Post by jbob2000 »

agumonkey wrote: post #6
jbob2000 wrote: post #5

One thing Julian Jaynes discusses in his book Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (highly recommend, but a hard read) is that consciousness is comprised of a number of different qualities, one being excerptification - the ability to take a number of indiscriminate ideas/memories/images and string together a narrative. For example, I can take the idea of a narwhal horn and the idea of a hors…

Computers are close to that. The neural net image backward inference is similar. They take bits of imagery and try to retrofit it in 'meaningful' ways, blending both source and target image. Also genetic programming can model swapping and blending traits.

Meh, not really, the computer doesn't understand the images it's mixing, it's just using some clever algorithms to piece together an image. It has no awareness of the images you're giving it. I couldn't give it an image of a narwhal and an image of a horse and expect it to give me a unicorn.

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#12

Post by argonaut »

agumonkey wrote: post #6
jbob2000 wrote: post #5

One thing Julian Jaynes discusses in his book Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (highly recommend, but a hard read) is that consciousness is comprised of a number of different qualities, one being excerptification - the ability to take a number of indiscriminate ideas/memories/images and string together a narrative. For example, I can take the idea of a narwhal horn and the idea of a hors…

Computers are close to that. The neural net image backward inference is similar. They take bits of imagery and try to retrofit it in 'meaningful' ways, blending both source and target image. Also genetic programming can model swapping and blending traits.

If you're referring to backprop, no. It's an open research question to characterize what/how a neural net is learning during backprop (aside from trivial statements like "optimizing a nonconvex function" etc.)

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#13

Post by theseatoms »

Smaug123 wrote: post #10
sickbeard wrote: post #8

My definition of conscious is being aware of what you are doing and influencing it. Can a computer running a file server realize it is only storing pirated movies and stop it it without being explicitly programmed to do so? A conscious computer could.

Are you sure that's a good definition? You yourself can't reliably stop remembering something even if you want to; why expect a computer to be able to do it?

I agree that GP's definition is lacking. That is, he only kicked the can. Now he has to define "being aware."

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#14

Post by argonaut »

jbob2000 wrote: post #11
agumonkey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers are close to that. The neural net image backward inference is similar. They take bits of imagery and try to retrofit it in 'meaningful' ways, blending both source and target image. Also genetic programming can model swapping and blending traits.

Meh, not really, the computer doesn't understand the images it's mixing, it's just using some clever algorithms to piece together an image. It has no awareness of the images you're giving it. I couldn't give it an image of a narwhal and an image of a horse and expect it to give me a unicorn.

To be fair, you haven't defined awareness in any meaningful way. Concepts are just coded by specific patterns of neural firings - there is no reason a neural net can't theoretically also code concepts meaningfully (of course, understanding that process and getting it work perfectly is decades away, IMO).

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#15

Post by RUBwkVjwLsDKgPw »

jbob2000 wrote: post #5

One thing Julian Jaynes discusses in his book Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (highly recommend, but a hard read) is that consciousness is comprised of a number of different qualities, one being excerptification - the ability to take a number of indiscriminate ideas/memories/images and string together a narrative. For example, I can take the idea of a narwhal horn and the idea of a hors…

You mean like this? https://www.instapainting.com/ai-painter

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#16

Post by agumonkey »

jbob2000 wrote: post #11
agumonkey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers are close to that. The neural net image backward inference is similar. They take bits of imagery and try to retrofit it in 'meaningful' ways, blending both source and target image. Also genetic programming can model swapping and blending traits.

Meh, not really, the computer doesn't understand the images it's mixing, it's just using some clever algorithms to piece together an image. It has no awareness of the images you're giving it. I couldn't give it an image of a narwhal and an image of a horse and expect it to give me a unicorn.

I don't buy the "understanding is hard". Also you'd have to characterize precisely what is so special about a unicorn. There are animals with 2, 3 .. things on their forehead. That doesn't make them special. What about pegasus. Or other invented beings of 50/50 blends (minautor, egyptian gods). We just have one particular model or animal qualities ingrained and 'enjoy' toying with a maximizing function of having both our traits and other animal traits. I'd love to see a cockroachman god figure.

I'd bet a thousands dollars that the underlying principles Deep Dreams uses to infer fractal and continuous images are the same we have in our brains.

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#17

Post by agumonkey »

argonaut wrote: post #12
agumonkey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers are close to that. The neural net image backward inference is similar. They take bits of imagery and try to retrofit it in 'meaningful' ways, blending both source and target image. Also genetic programming can model swapping and blending traits.

If you're referring to backprop, no. It's an open research question to characterize what/how a neural net is learning during backprop (aside from trivial statements like "optimizing a nonconvex function" etc.)

No, I didn't even study NN, so backprop is a fuzzy notion. I take it as a convergence feedback loop, am I completely off ?

By backward I meant the images done by the Deep Dreams program. They retrofit (hence the back) 'dog' signals fractally. This is a pretty amazing primitive to me. Trying to recognize 'concepts' even through that much distortion.

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#18

Post by sickbeard »

theseatoms wrote: post #13
Smaug123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that's a good definition? You yourself can't reliably stop remembering something even if you want to; why expect a computer to be able to do it?

I agree that GP's definition is lacking. That is, he only kicked the can. Now he has to define "being aware."

It does not need to be defined.

"Being aware" can be observed externally (by us) from an attempt by the entity to independently influence whatever state the entity was in.

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#19

Post by agumonkey »

RUBwkVjwLsDKgPw wrote: post #15
jbob2000 wrote: post #5

One thing Julian Jaynes discusses in his book Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (highly recommend, but a hard read) is that consciousness is comprised of a number of different qualities, one being excerptification - the ability to take a number of indiscriminate ideas/memories/images and string together a narrative. For example, I can take the idea of a narwhal horn and the idea of a hors…

You mean like this? https://www.instapainting.com/ai-painter

Deep Dreams. Even though this one was surprisingly effective, but less general than DD.

Re: Can computers become conscious?: My reply to Roger Penrose

#20

Post by [deleted] »

agumonkey wrote: post #16
jbob2000 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, not really, the computer doesn't understand the images it's mixing, it's just using some clever algorithms to piece together an image. It has no awareness of the images you're giving it. I couldn't give it an image of a narwhal and an image of a horse and expect it to give me a unicorn.

I don't buy the "understanding is hard". Also you'd have to characterize precisely what is so special about a unicorn. There are animals with 2, 3 .. things on their forehead. That doesn't make them special. What about pegasus. Or other invented beings of 50/50 blends (minautor, egyptian gods). We just have one particular model or animal qualities ingrained and 'enjoy' toying with a maximizing function of having both…

[deleted]
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