A startup is building computer chips using real neurons

If we can create an AI with different goals and reward mechanisms, there is a potential that we could create agents that are experiencing bliss doing data processing tasks.

Of course how we tell the difference between a miserable agent and a joyous agent is still an open question ..

I have no reason to believe that what a Roomba feels when it approaches a descending flight of stairs is any different in practice from what I feel when I approach a precipice. Our pathways are totally different, but ultimately there is a communication from our sensory organs to our processing architecture, where an ingrained drive toward self-preservation momentarily overrides other needs. In my case, I could call it "fear," or "anxiety," or "angst" if I'm feeling philosophical. In the Roomba's case, I have no knowledge of its subjective experience, but that doesn't mean that I should draw up a new word to construct a delineation between the Roomba and myself. We are both machines, and our response to the same situation is largely the same.

How useful is it to describe pain as a "subjective experience of suffering" when neither subjective experience, nor the feeling of suffering, is directly observable? (Also, I don't agree that pain and suffering are interchangeable concepts.)

A truly useful definition of "pain" would hold water without reliance on an anthropocentric tautology. I know what it feels like to slice my hand open while cutting tomatoes. That doesn't give me any power to understand what it feels like for an octopus to lose one of its arms, or for a tree to have its branches trimmed.

What's funny is that my way of considering "pain" is not even the most divergent from yours. Many Andean cultures believed that stones, rivers, and mountains have energy, thoughts, feelings, and souls. These ideas remain in the culture to this day.

What spurs an ABS to pulse the brake line pressure when the wheels begin to slip as the driver mashes on the brakes to avoid a collision? What spurs an ant to run away when it steps onto a hot radiator? What spurs a human to stop walking on a broken ankle? All of this is programmed in one way or another, all of it is self-preservation.

I am a collection of interconnected units, each of which is itself a combination of different organelles and other purpose-serving features. My intelligence is itself a product of the interaction of simple, unintelligent parts. So I would say that I am a machine. I would describe a robot as a man-made machine where the interaction of various silicon parts and processors gives rise to intelligence. By that definition, I am not a robot.

I believe that we don't feel pain when we are truly in trauma. It is only when we can do something about the damaging stimulus that we feel pain. I once had a major accident where I experienced lung collapse and multiple fractures. I never lost consciousness but I don't remember feeling any pain until well after others came to my aid. Even when I tried and failed to pick myself up off the ground, I did not feel pain, only disability and relief that my fingers and toes still moved.

I believe that the question of "what is pain" and the question of "is pain a good criterion for deciding whether it is acceptable to do harm to something" are two totally different philosophical problems. They are connected only insofar as we have chosen pain as a proxy for harm. But that very relationship between pain and harm indicates that pain is not just some kind of soulful feeling, but rather a signal to help us evade harm now or in the future.