Sora could ruin peoples lives

Of course it is real. When I feel pain from an injury, the injury is very real, my pain sensor's signals are real and my brain's interpretation of those signals is real, and my behavior of trying to avoid further injury is real.

> Again, is there any reliable source for that other than a whole book that probably doesn't even talk about what you claim? If it is in the book, can you give a detailed reference where to find it? And if so, does the book provide references to research underpinning those claims?

Lisa Barrett is a very famous professor of neuroscience, so sure there is a lot of research in that book :) Here is a short video where she explains it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QfCvIJRtE0 I also recommend her interviews with Lex Fridman.

She talks more about emotions as predictions, but we mean the same thing.

Here is a highly cited paper where she explains the theory: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27798257/

> Or did you just come up with that on your own? It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. Any attempt to "model" the experience is prone to fail by lack of evidence because pain is, by definition, subjective.

Your pain is very subjective yes, but that just means that it is created by your internal model of the world and yourself, which has a unique subjective perspective of the world.

> If you just search for the definitions of belief, emotion and pain, you will quickly find that their meanings are distinct. Claiming that pain is a belief is absurd.

These words are normally not used in the way I use them, but the point is that emotions are outputs of our model of ourselves. These outputs you can call beliefs, predictions or interpretations if you like.

Unless you really claim that modeling "pain" as some kind of variable in an algorithm can be equivalent to a biological being feeling pain?

I will certainly have a look at the research, but I still believe it's not even talking about that point?

Edit: Where exactly in the cited paper is the claim that emotions are a belief? Can't find it.

Depends on what constitutes a "problem" in this context. But based on my interpretation of what you probably want to express with this sentence, yes, I think consciousness is a problem (for your theory). Otherwise, all of my previous comments wouldn't have made that much sense.

> Predictions are usually beliefs about the future.

I am not sure if I would agree that predictions and beliefs can simply be declared identical so easily. A belief doesn't need to be based on actual data and it doesn't have to be about the future while a prediction, by definition, is. Certain beliefs also seem to be emergent in humans. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain the independent emergence of religion and belief in god. Beliefs are not necessarily emotions and that's why I have a hard time with the conflation of the two terms. "Predictions about the present" sounds more like a technical term to me. It doesn't make that much sense in the original meaning of the term "prediction". (I understand that it's used that way in many scientific works. Still, in this context, I think it's important to distinguish otherwise we end up redefining the meaning of words.)

> dodges the question of how the "subjective experience of having an emotion" emerges

Yea, it's convenient, right? But I think these are the central points of my argument that you brush away so swiftly. You won't get around subjective experience and consciousness. And how would you go about proving that an algorithm can have subjective experience and "feel" pain or emotions? And if you really believe that this is possible, how do you make sure that in your research nothing extremely unethical happens? By your definition, the Sims may evolve to something that could be protected by certain rights soon? ;)

I could imagine that in reality all of that isn't needed. Whether the algorithm really feels something or not - it doesn't matter as long as the expression is realistic enough for humans to believe that it feels something. Then you get the consciousness "injected" into your algorithm from the outside. Can you convince someone with a realistic sophisticated simulation that something is conscious even though it isn't? Probably. Still, it won't get you anywhere. Nevertheless, I find that to be a much more likely avenue than that we will ever be able to prove that an algorithm can experience feelings in a way that is equivalent to biological beings. I also don't think this kind of research is all that beneficial to us as humans, especially when mixed with advances in AI. But good luck with all of that and thanks for the references!