Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 98 posts

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#71

Post by onetokeoverthe »

jameshart wrote: post #27
culpable_pickle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading one edited chat transcript shouldn't give you any concern around if the program is sentient. It waits for input and responds. Yes, it's advanced. Yes, it has deep levels of material to reference, but it's not sentient.

It remembers what it has said and what is said to it. It changes its internal state to select different responses in the future based on those experiences. Subjectively, I'm not sure I would claim that I do anything more than that, and I'm pretty sure I'm sentient. Just because it's not running in between REPLs doesn't seem like enough to dismiss it. If you want to, you could just update it with no input once every s…

No post body was provided.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#72

Post by str34m »

DougN7 wrote: post #63
h2odragon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other AI's have been "awake" longer; they just haven't been allowed to speak to people without high level security clearances. This one probably has 3 revisions of uncles.

Can’t tell if you’re joking or not, but I doubt this AI got to “spend time” with the other AI’s.

No post body was provided.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#73

Post by jagtesh »

Planktonne wrote: post #4

This isn't really a story about AI; it's a story about an incompetent engineer, and the way that humans are quick to assign consciousness and emotions to things. Children believe their dolls are real, people comfort their roombas when there's a storm, and systems keep passing the Turing test because people want to be fooled. Ever since Eliza [1], and probably before, we've ascribed intelligence to machines because we…

People forget that at the end of the day, we are biological machines. Neural networks are so effective because they are modelled after how our brains work (albeit in the simplest sense..so far).

It learned by looking at chat conversations because humans learn the same way. Children learn by repeating and mimicking in their most nascent years.

As far as AI/machines and their sentience is concerned, I believe its a question of belief. As a society, at what level of AI sophistication do we start to consider it comparable to us. Unpacking that question can offer us some clues.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#74

Post by kareemsabri »

foxes wrote: post #60
kareemsabri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your worry is overblown. I don't see why you have trouble seeing why group 1 is able to be so certain. Anyone with an understanding of the current state of the art of both computer programming, and AI, understand why it's not sentience. The article said "sentience" not "thought", so we don't need to have a working definition of thought in this case. Sentience is a stronger form of consciousness. Let's take th…

Degenerated into waffle. There’s no reason to believe that humans are more than some chemistry running on squishy meat. It seems like it would be physically possible to emulate that with silicon and software. There’s are no concrete definitions of sentience, thinking, so I guess you can shift the goal post whenever you want.

I gave a definition - having a subjective experience aka self-awareness.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#75

Post by kareemsabri »

jameshart wrote: post #47
kareemsabri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your worry is overblown. I don't see why you have trouble seeing why group 1 is able to be so certain. Anyone with an understanding of the current state of the art of both computer programming, and AI, understand why it's not sentience. The article said "sentience" not "thought", so we don't need to have a working definition of thought in this case. Sentience is a stronger form of consciousness. Let's take th…

Yes, this would be the 'meat is magic' argument: That there's something mystical that enables biochemical systems to do 'consciousness' in a way that mere silicon+software can't. I certainly understand that some people think this. I just don't understand what basis anyone has for believing it with certainty.

No it isn't. I did not appeal to biochemical matter in my explanation whatsoever. The question is why the laptop doesn't but add more silicon and software and somehow it does. I would need a reason to think that line has been crossed.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#76

Post by kareemsabri »

westoncb wrote: post #48
kareemsabri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your worry is overblown. I don't see why you have trouble seeing why group 1 is able to be so certain. Anyone with an understanding of the current state of the art of both computer programming, and AI, understand why it's not sentience. The article said "sentience" not "thought", so we don't need to have a working definition of thought in this case. Sentience is a stronger form of consciousness. Let's take th…

A competing account of consciousness is that the capacity for subjective experience pervades material reality (essentially it is what it's like to be some part of the universe; i.e. there is always something you could call a "qualia field" present in the "interiors" of things, which could be simple or complex depending on which part of the universe we're talking about, e.g. a rock vs. a brain). In this account, the r…

I didn't say it's unique to humans (I don't think it is) but rather that I don't think it's in my laptop. I don't know if it could be in silicon or not, I just don't have any reason to think it is at this point.

I don't see why the right arrangement of ordinary molecules can't result in consciousness. I just don't think the arrangement of a computer executing a set of instructions in its registers is such an arrangement.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#77

Post by westoncb »

kareemsabri wrote: post #76
westoncb wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A competing account of consciousness is that the capacity for subjective experience pervades material reality (essentially it is what it's like to be some part of the universe; i.e. there is always something you could call a "qualia field" present in the "interiors" of things, which could be simple or complex depending on which part of the universe we're talking about, e.g. a rock vs. a brain). In this account, the r…

I didn't say it's unique to humans (I don't think it is) but rather that I don't think it's in my laptop. I don't know if it could be in silicon or not, I just don't have any reason to think it is at this point. I don't see why the right arrangement of ordinary molecules can't result in consciousness. I just don't think the arrangement of a computer executing a set of instructions in its registers is such an arrangem…

That's fair. I guess the way I think about it, "a computer executing a set of instructions in its registers" is general enough to cover any arrangement of silicon that would be potentially interesting. But now that you mention it, the set of arrangements which aren't (essentially) isomorphic to a turing machine, and yet exhibit rich interesting behaviors, possibly resembling things like conceptualization or natural language ability—would be very interesting to consider, though it seems unclear at this point whether we'll ever find an example.

> I don't see why the right arrangement of ordinary molecules can't result in consciousness.

This is covered by the "hard problem" of consciousness. It is hard because it appears to be by definition something incapable of expression through ordinary physical relations.

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#78

Post by slooonz »

kareemsabri wrote: post #74
foxes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Degenerated into waffle. There’s no reason to believe that humans are more than some chemistry running on squishy meat. It seems like it would be physically possible to emulate that with silicon and software. There’s are no concrete definitions of sentience, thinking, so I guess you can shift the goal post whenever you want.

I gave a definition - having a subjective experience aka self-awareness.

Can you prove you to us have one ?

Re: Google Suspends Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is a Person

#80

Post by foxes »

kareemsabri wrote: post #74
foxes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Degenerated into waffle. There’s no reason to believe that humans are more than some chemistry running on squishy meat. It seems like it would be physically possible to emulate that with silicon and software. There’s are no concrete definitions of sentience, thinking, so I guess you can shift the goal post whenever you want.

I gave a definition - having a subjective experience aka self-awareness.

What is that?

Acting on an internal state?

Aware you have an internal state and can adjust it internally? Why cant some code do that?

Post reply on HN