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Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

corticallabs.com

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Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#51

Post by samuelec »

isoprophlex wrote: post #19
mnode wrote: post #5

Beautiful website. They massively over-claim on their science though. Their 'tech' is nothing special, people have been culturing and recording from neurons for years. And their claims of 'sentient' neurons in a dish should be taken as being somewhat flexible with the meaning of the word.

When I see something so over-engineered on the aesthetics front, my knee jerk reaction is to think "this is overcompensating, and i guess they don't really have what they promise"

plus it feels like in the 90' where "webmasters" would try to impress you with an Adobe Flash animation. So bad

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#52

Post by anon-3988 »

anonymouszx wrote: post #50
jagrsw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you will be subjugating a possibly conscious mind into servitude. Is the distinction between a protein-and-salt-water model versus an electronic-gates-and-memory model meaningful? From a computational standpoint, they both manipulate states and store data. Does substrate matter unless we're invoking metaphysical claims? Regarding the video ( https://twitter.com/Scobleizer/status/1716312250422796590 ), the device se…

We know that the human brain is able to generate qualia (conscious experiences) despite having no model for how these are generated. (To be clear, by consciousness, I mean the ability to have conscious experiences such as experiencing a color or pain, not self-awareness.) On the other hand, the hypothesis that a Turing machine on its own could generate conscious experiences leads to many seemingly absurd scenarios. N…

> On the other hand, the hypothesis that a Turing machine on its own could generate conscious experiences leads to many seemingly absurd scenarios. Notably, one has to ask how a simulation of supposedly conscious Turing machine using pen and paper could possibly be conscious, or indeed, why one would need to "run" a Turing machine for consciousness to arise and why a mere description of it would not suffice.

Applying this logic, heat is also fundamentally mysterious. What even is heat? Heat definitely exists, but is a mere description of it enough? If I run the simulation of a universe with heat; is that heat?

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#53

Post by Tistron »

jagrsw wrote: post #13
anon-3988 wrote: post #10

If the goal is to mimic the human brain, how is this different than just...starting with a human brain? Either way, you will be subjugating a possibly conscious mind into servitude. I am sure they are "happy" (however you want to measure it) about it either way lol

> you will be subjugating a possibly conscious mind into servitude. Is the distinction between a protein-and-salt-water model versus an electronic-gates-and-memory model meaningful? From a computational standpoint, they both manipulate states and store data. Does substrate matter unless we're invoking metaphysical claims? Regarding the video ( https://twitter.com/Scobleizer/status/1716312250422796590 ), the device se…

"Substrate matters" and "substrate doesn't matter" seem to me to both be metaphysical claims.

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#54

Post by otikik »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42
sparrowInHand wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, i thought it would first go the other way around. To many billionaires afraid of death, trying to encode there mindstate-personality into a machine and become semi-imortal.

Ah, the billionaires . Boogeymen of our times. The scourge of all us crabs living here in this fine bucket.

It’s not a bucket. It’s a pot. And it’s heating up.

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#55

Post by xialvjun »

Version467 wrote: post #25
sparrowInHand wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, i thought it would first go the other way around. To many billionaires afraid of death, trying to encode there mindstate-personality into a machine and become semi-imortal.

I've never understood this. Even if we would have perfect mind-uploading capabilities, this doesn't help the billionaire who is afraid of death, right? It'd just be a copy of them. An immortal one, sure, but the original person would die just the same, no?

Ship of Theseus

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#56

Post by anon-3988 »

anonymouszx wrote: post #50
jagrsw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you will be subjugating a possibly conscious mind into servitude. Is the distinction between a protein-and-salt-water model versus an electronic-gates-and-memory model meaningful? From a computational standpoint, they both manipulate states and store data. Does substrate matter unless we're invoking metaphysical claims? Regarding the video ( https://twitter.com/Scobleizer/status/1716312250422796590 ), the device se…

We know that the human brain is able to generate qualia (conscious experiences) despite having no model for how these are generated. (To be clear, by consciousness, I mean the ability to have conscious experiences such as experiencing a color or pain, not self-awareness.) On the other hand, the hypothesis that a Turing machine on its own could generate conscious experiences leads to many seemingly absurd scenarios. N…

> So to summarise and answer your question more directly, I think there is something about our universe that allows for the generation of conscious experience and that our brains, likely on the neural level, have a bidirectional interaction with this something.

What makes you think that this relationship is bidirectional? AFAIK and experience, the relationship is entirely unidirectional. I literally have no idea what I am going to do next. Doing so would require me to think to think what to think.

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#58

Post by pjc50 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42
sparrowInHand wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, i thought it would first go the other way around. To many billionaires afraid of death, trying to encode there mindstate-personality into a machine and become semi-imortal.

Ah, the billionaires . Boogeymen of our times. The scourge of all us crabs living here in this fine bucket.

Given the bizarre behavior seen around extremely old politicians, such as the recently deceased Feinstein (D), and the permanent unelected upper legislature of the US Supreme Court, I think the first uploaded forever politician is a bigger threat. But who will pay for their extended life?

(The word for "ageless billionaire" is "corporation")

Note that in the "uploaded politician" case it's not nearly so relevant as to whether the person themselves believes it's the same person, as to whether everyone else believes they're the same person, and whether the upload has legal continuity in their job and position.

Re: Cortical Labs: "Human neural networks raised in a simulation"

#59

Post by ChatGTP »

falcor84 wrote: post #30
Version467 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood this. Even if we would have perfect mind-uploading capabilities, this doesn't help the billionaire who is afraid of death, right? It'd just be a copy of them. An immortal one, sure, but the original person would die just the same, no?

There's the philosophical argument that we have no continuity of consciousness in our meatbag bodies either - e.g. when you wake up, it's rebooting your consciousness from suspended memories.

If you weren’t conscious when asleep, how do you explain dreams and memories?

I’ve read about high level meditators who were “aware” they were asleep too. Not sure why they’d make this up.

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