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Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

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Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#31

Post by UmbertoNoEco »

saulpw wrote: post #23
snek_case wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I see "qualia" being discussed I just roll my eyes. Asking whether a CPU can experience qualia is kind of like asking if atoms can experience anything. The CPU is just the substrate on which software runs.

You're being quite dismissive of a very real question. Where does our subjective experience come from? If there was an AGI with human-level intelligence, would it have its own subjective experience? How could we possibly know (either way)? For that matter, does a brain have a subjective experience, or is it just the substrate on which a mind runs?

Probably it is a valid question, but I lost my patience a long long long time ago with the David Chalmers and Thomas Nagels of this world. They love to play a god of the gaps game with consciousness which it is really boring. The same thing some scientists did regarding life in the 19th century , which still some people play btw: the search for the supposed elan-vital. Count me in with Dr I-refute-thus Johnson and the anesthesiologists on the physical-reductionist side.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#32

Post by d_tr »

snek_case wrote: post #6
superb-owl wrote: post #2

This is kind of a weird discussion. "Embodiment" here seems to mean "having a body," i.e. being able to perform motor tasks in the external world (as opposed to the way it's used in "Embodiment and the Inner Life" [1]). In that case, I don't think embodiment could ever be considered a necessary condition for AGI. But AGI would need to be able to learn motor tasks if given a body (in order to be called "general"). A d…

Whenever I see "qualia" being discussed I just roll my eyes. Asking whether a CPU can experience qualia is kind of like asking if atoms can experience anything. The CPU is just the substrate on which software runs.

> The CPU is just the substrate on which software runs.

So what? Software is still physical configuration on a running system.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#33

Post by tshaddox »

01100011 wrote: post #25
fatherzine wrote: post #5

Correct. Without real stakes, no real intelligence. Now why on Earth would anyone want to build an embodied AGI, beats me. Actually, it doesn't beat me, it's the age old foolish pride that we'll be able to control our creation. We are not Gods, we won't. There should be international treaties with teeth to ban A(G)I research, like we do for uranium enrichment or (to a lesser extent) for gain of function research. Wha…

We already have several technological "cats out of the bag". One can go buy a CRISPR kit for $1,000 and perform gain of function studies in their garage. One could build an accelerator or neutron source to amass radiological materials. One could make dangerous drones that use basic pattern recognition to target specific people or groups There are plenty of dangerous technologies available to rogue actors these days.…

One (okay, two) can also create new humans which have human-level intelligence and are sometimes difficult to predict and control. Many such humans have been known to use their intelligence to do extremely dangerous and harmful things.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#35

Post by olalonde »

fatherzine wrote: post #5

Correct. Without real stakes, no real intelligence. Now why on Earth would anyone want to build an embodied AGI, beats me. Actually, it doesn't beat me, it's the age old foolish pride that we'll be able to control our creation. We are not Gods, we won't. There should be international treaties with teeth to ban A(G)I research, like we do for uranium enrichment or (to a lesser extent) for gain of function research. Wha…

Nice theory but:

1) If AGI is possible, it will happen no matter what international treaties are in place.

2) AGI could do an unimaginable amount of good if it is benevolent. It seems a bit premature to stop all research just because you have a bad hunch about it.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#36

Post by Baeocystin »

Isinlor wrote: post #14
superb-owl wrote: post #2

This is kind of a weird discussion. "Embodiment" here seems to mean "having a body," i.e. being able to perform motor tasks in the external world (as opposed to the way it's used in "Embodiment and the Inner Life" [1]). In that case, I don't think embodiment could ever be considered a necessary condition for AGI. But AGI would need to be able to learn motor tasks if given a body (in order to be called "general"). A d…

It's impossible to not be embodied. Controlling CPU and other hardware like motherboard and computer screen is an embodiment. Why would moving physical objects like electrons by micro meters not be good enough, but by meters it would?

It's not that the computation is physical that matters- it's the feedback and interaction from the world at human scales that a physical form would provide. The assumption is that anchoring an AGI to our scale will lead to human-scale perception and solutions.

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#38

Post by K0SM0S »

saulpw wrote: post #23
snek_case wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I see "qualia" being discussed I just roll my eyes. Asking whether a CPU can experience qualia is kind of like asking if atoms can experience anything. The CPU is just the substrate on which software runs.

You're being quite dismissive of a very real question. Where does our subjective experience come from? If there was an AGI with human-level intelligence, would it have its own subjective experience? How could we possibly know (either way)? For that matter, does a brain have a subjective experience, or is it just the substrate on which a mind runs?

There's no asking, let alone answering this question beyond mere speculations, until we've defined "subjective experience" in objective terms — i.e. positively provable, measurable in some unambiguous way (not merely inferred). That is the hard problem. Solving it might require reframing the problem such that this dichotomy isn't even relevant anymore (like say electromagnetic information isn't "opposed" or "dual" or "exclusive" to a gravitational field but merely concurrent) if we are to unify somehow the general field of "theory of mind".

Re: Embodiment is indispensable for AGI

#40

Post by tshaddox »

saulpw wrote: post #23
snek_case wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I see "qualia" being discussed I just roll my eyes. Asking whether a CPU can experience qualia is kind of like asking if atoms can experience anything. The CPU is just the substrate on which software runs.

You're being quite dismissive of a very real question. Where does our subjective experience come from? If there was an AGI with human-level intelligence, would it have its own subjective experience? How could we possibly know (either way)? For that matter, does a brain have a subjective experience, or is it just the substrate on which a mind runs?

Sometimes questions need to be dismissed, including very real questions that many people in good faith spend their lives thinking about and discussing. Sometimes the "answer" to a question is the dismissal of the question, or more accurately, the solution to the problem the question refers to involves an explanation that the question was ill-formed or nonsensical.

I won't say I'm at that point with the question of qualia, but I share the other commenter's reflexive eye-rolling when I hear it invoked. Perhaps the question doesn't deserve to be dismissed, but I'd certainly like to see some new clarity about what the question is really asking, what problems would be solved by finding an answer to the question, or heck, even a remotely plausible description of what form a valid answer might take.

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