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Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

nautil.us

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Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#41

Post by NumberWangMan »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #31
NumberWangMan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will the artificial agents replace the human species? One can certainly hope so. First, not so great of a species, as mentioned. Secondly, the universe is large and the humans are squishy, something else must go on eventually. Easy enough to say if you imagine your distant descendants being replaced. Not so easy if it turns out to be your own children, or you. *edit -- also, no guarantee that AIs will be "better" t…

First of, we are doing a bang-up job killing ourselves and the planet. Hard to see how they could outmatch us. Launch all the nukes? In general the children are better than the parents. The replacement, if it's the case, will probably be more like in the 2001, A.I. Artificial Intelligence movie: some beings that are completely unrelatable to us would look with pity and slight amusement as a being disappears after onl…

I'm not really convinced by "argument from human works of fiction". More aggressive, more violent species end up replacing more gentle ones all the time.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#42

Post by paulryanrogers »

melling wrote: post #11

What’s an even worse idea is to waste so much time with these inane discussions. Every day there’s some other opinion. Can we get these people to work on the actual problem rather than bike shed?

'should' is an important question to ask before it's too late

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#43

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #39
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #15

"The dawn of conscious machines will introduce vast new potential for suffering in the world, suffering we might not even be able to recognize, and which might flicker into existence in innumerable server farms at the click of a mouse." Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths (poverty, aberrant laws, malevolent leaders, etc.)…

> Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths We are provably the only living being on Earth that do care about it. > If we will be able to spawn an agent in a household humanoid robot and let them do the chores around the house, will we do it, even if it will imply killing that agent whenever it powers down? You betcha That's th…

"We are provably the only living being on Earth that do care about it."

Very much not true: [1] [2] and plenty more in a quick search.

https://animalclock.org

The point is not that in nature there are also killings, it's that we are doing it.

[1] "Cat Saves Little Boy From Being Attacked by Neighbor's Dog" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSG_wBiTEE8

[2] "Cat Saves Toddler From Falling Down Stairs", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpEnpitzHw

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#45

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

vasco wrote: post #20
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #15

"The dawn of conscious machines will introduce vast new potential for suffering in the world, suffering we might not even be able to recognize, and which might flicker into existence in innumerable server farms at the click of a mouse." Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths (poverty, aberrant laws, malevolent leaders, etc.)…

> If we will be able to spawn an agent in a household humanoid robot and let them do the chores around the house, will we do it, even if it will imply killing that agent whenever it powers down? You betcha Unless you're against writing to persistent storage and just keep everything in RAM-like memory, why would this be a thing? Do you also feel like you "die" every day for 8 hours?

Just gave an example for shock value, to cut through the whole trolley problematization. In practice, if we will be able to generate synthetic agents, we should be able to have a plethora of gradients: some agents will only know how to make us a good dinner, others will care about us when we are sick, perhaps some we will even want as lifelong partners, who knows.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#46

Post by kbrkbr »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #8
zvmaz wrote: post #3

There are certainly a lot of people who have given much thought about AI and consciousness, but how can we talk about sentient machines when we clearly do not understand consciousness in us, human beings[1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

That's part of the reason to be wary about the possibility that our AI models may become conscious. Most people happily dismiss the idea that a GPT-like model can be conscious, but the truth is that we don't know practically anything about how consciousness arises in living beings that are more similar to us and that we have been coexisting with for thousands of years. We don't even know how to tell if such a being i…

Your post touches two points worth to think about:

The test for consciousness: if we do have zero criterion, how we are gonna find out if something is conscious?

That is already a good indicator how much we do not know about the „mechanism” of consciousness.

Point two is that we in fact know so little, that we cannot even nail a probability for some complex mechanism if is conscious.

A car: probably not, too far away from things that are conscious.

An ant?

A microphone that listens to its output?

A k-means run on some data?

An llm?

Some electricity in a biological neural network?

If only we had a proven criterion to decide!

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#47

Post by ChrisClark »

zvmaz wrote: post #38
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with killing animals for food, the problem is we don't do it humanely. If everyone ate less meat (as they should) and farms followed Temple Grandin's advice, there would be significantly less ethical concerns.

> Nothing wrong with killing animals for food, the problem is we don't do it humanely. What if a hypothetical alien super-intelligence came to earth and found us very tasty, thus killing us for food and pleasure (maybe "humanly")? I wish I found a way out of the many dilemmas of meat eating (currently eating it).

You sound like me. I'm a vegetarian "in spirit", I care, but I love eating meat too much. Hopefully we get affordable lab grown meat soon.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#48

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

NumberWangMan wrote: post #41
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of, we are doing a bang-up job killing ourselves and the planet. Hard to see how they could outmatch us. Launch all the nukes? In general the children are better than the parents. The replacement, if it's the case, will probably be more like in the 2001, A.I. Artificial Intelligence movie: some beings that are completely unrelatable to us would look with pity and slight amusement as a being disappears after onl…

I'm not really convinced by "argument from human works of fiction". More aggressive, more violent species end up replacing more gentle ones all the time.

My point was that the synthetic agents which we will endow with full capacity, not just being a tool, will feel more like our children. We caring about them, and they caring about us.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#49

Post by wincy »

ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #31
NumberWangMan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will the artificial agents replace the human species? One can certainly hope so. First, not so great of a species, as mentioned. Secondly, the universe is large and the humans are squishy, something else must go on eventually. Easy enough to say if you imagine your distant descendants being replaced. Not so easy if it turns out to be your own children, or you. *edit -- also, no guarantee that AIs will be "better" t…

First of, we are doing a bang-up job killing ourselves and the planet. Hard to see how they could outmatch us. Launch all the nukes? In general the children are better than the parents. The replacement, if it's the case, will probably be more like in the 2001, A.I. Artificial Intelligence movie: some beings that are completely unrelatable to us would look with pity and slight amusement as a being disappears after onl…

If you want to read a story that is simultaneously one of the most hilarious and bizarre stories of a potential future where AI takes over, consider Friendship is Optimal [0], which is a way better story than it has any business being.

It shows a carefully and thoughtfully trained AGI acting within its parameters to achieve the goals it has been programmed to fulfill. Namely, through friendship and ponies. You won’t BELIEVE what happens next!

[0] https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#50

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

zvmaz wrote: post #38
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with killing animals for food, the problem is we don't do it humanely. If everyone ate less meat (as they should) and farms followed Temple Grandin's advice, there would be significantly less ethical concerns.

> Nothing wrong with killing animals for food, the problem is we don't do it humanely. What if a hypothetical alien super-intelligence came to earth and found us very tasty, thus killing us for food and pleasure (maybe "humanly")? I wish I found a way out of the many dilemmas of meat eating (currently eating it).

Good news we taste awful. I mean we eat antibiotics-driven factory farm meats. How good can we taste?
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