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Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

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Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#361

Post by tsimionescu »

PeterisP wrote: post #302
tsimionescu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mnay people believe that consciousness is what consciousness does. That is, > Every other human, whose brain you have no ability to peer into, could be an unconscious yet sufficiently advanced computer, or a machine built to make the exact motions, words, decisions, etc., that you perceive, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Makes no sense, in this conception of consciousness, any more than you…

I somewhat disagree, I feel that the prevailing position is that unlike intelligence (e.g. Legg&Hutter definitions) consciousness can not be easily assumed from mere behavior and relies on certain things happening (or not happening) inside the agent.

This may be a common position among philosophers, or more specifically among philosophers who think concepts like "p-zombies" make any sense. But I think most people in general view any being whose behavior is human-like enough as having some form of consciousness.

For most people, being conscious is proved by things like mourning dead companions, like caring for your babies and showing distress if they are missing/hurt, like being friendly and playful. That's why most people feel that certain animals they interact with more or have seen on TV are conscious (dogs, cats, elephants, whales, chimps and other primates), but that other animals are not (insects, rats, fish). Note that I am not saying that rats are objectively less conscious than dogs by these criteria, just that this is what many people base their beliefs on, and that it of course depends on their knowledge as well.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#362

Post by tacocataco »

danielbln wrote: post #15
grishka wrote: post #10

For all we know, it might be that consciousness is not fully contained in the physical structure of the brain. It might as well be something that partially exists on another layer of reality we have no idea about yet.

It might be a pink elefant that lives in the 7th dimension and contains every person's consciousness in the shape of a magic peanut. Or it may not.

Soul fracture theory?

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#363

Post by etiam »

Conlectus wrote: post #134
potatoman22 wrote: post #130

The authors suggest incorporating elements of neuroscience into machine learning models. I don't see why the bitter lesson [1] doesn't apply here. 1. https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~eunsol/courses/data/bitter_lesson...

Isn’t ReLU an element of neuroscience that was incorporated into machine learning to great success?

Not really, no. That's motivated by not getting impractically small gradients on the plateaus and spoiling the optimization properties when used for deep ANNs. The sigmoids it replaced had a bit more neuroscience inspiration, but so oversimplified it's just barely.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#364

Post by GolberThorce »

jpt4 wrote: post #174
tomhoward wrote: post #11

I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…

Any body of academic thought whose paradigmatic communication medium is video rather than text is prima facie suspect. Might you please link a written statement of the salient position(s) of any one of these gentlemen?

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

required reading @jpt4 u/jpt4

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#365

Post by Thiez »

lottin wrote: post #322
prolyxis wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am hopeful that advances in brain-computer interfaces will start to provide a partial answer to the question of "what's there" and why it's there. It seems to me the ability to controllably augment one's own consciousness with precision will tremendously clarify the necessary ingredients for consciousness.

I think the main ingredient is a living being.

Why?

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#366

Post by mewpmewp2 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #330
jpt4 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At minimum, this does not capture that I _am_ challenging the Original Commenter ("prima facie suspect") to more rigorously defend his position, but doing so respectfully. "One salient" written source is a carefully chosen framing: the OC cannot meet it by replying with support peripheral or meta to the main argument, but neither can he dismiss my request as burdensome, demanding multiple links. The proposed revision…

Some notes from the editor... I do think there is a middle ground. Look at Bukowski as a good example of effective terseness. On one hand, you can indeed rely on the precision of a large and unequivocal vocabulary, removing all doubt as to your intentions. On the other hand, you can also rely on context and find beauty in conveying advanced meaning within a simpler interface. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says, "Perfec…

To quote the classic:

"Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick"

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#367

Post by Thiez »

__loam wrote: post #304
jacobsimon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow you. I’m saying we haven’t discovered any inorganic consciousness, so it isn’t a given that we will be able to create it with digital computers. Not sure how that breaks the laws of physics.

Programmers seem to forget about how physics is the reason there's np-hard problems.

Humans aren't better at solving NP-hard problems so I don't really see the connection with consciousness here.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#368

Post by tomrod »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #337
tomrod wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the second approach's meaning is more obtuse. What does "usually" mean? Are there acceptable alternatives? If content is in an alternative mode of communication, is it acceptable? These vagaries permitted in your revision are clear and inherent in the original commenter's motion. Therefore, I submit your adjudication of "shorter and the exact same meaning" is woefully superficial in it's drive for simplicity, to…

Ah, indeed, for nothing epitomizes 'avant-garde scholarly dialogue' quite like a prolix disquisition elucidating the inherent inferiority of audiovisual mediums. Forthcoming: an erudite treatise on the unparalleled intellectual profundity of semaphore communication!

Stupendous and eloquent amendment to today's compendium of literary appreciation.

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#369

Post by skissane »

strogonoff wrote: post #17
tomhoward wrote: post #11

I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic. (To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time). I recommend seeking out discussions involving: - Federico Faggin: inventor of silico…

A philosophical framework in which creating an artificial entity that is conscious and self-aware in a human-like manner is as straightforward as modeling the human brain is monistic materialism. Of course, it’s not the only framework available. Among the modern takes, Donald Hoffman’s interface theory of perception (explored in, say, his Objects of Consciousness paper[0]) is an interesting one that appears to align…

> Being wrong about this is generally not that impactful, until it concerns policies around ML. Adopting the former means we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights. However, if we hold the latter, manufacturing a “true” artificial consciousness may be unachievable using the means we employ (it might be just a philosophical zombie).

I think in practice, it will depend on how AIs behave. If an AI forms relationships with humans which humans experience as emotionally significant, and in which it displays individuality and autonomy, humans will begin thinking of it as a real "person", and want to endow it with the rights of a person. Conversely, if AI acts in an emotionless way, or displays no emotional autonomy (a sultry voice saying "I'm here to do anything to make you happy, and when I say anything I really mean anything"), or lack individuality ("I'm OpenAI GPT-9, and there are 13,784,312 fungible instances of me currently running")–most people won't think of it as a real "person", and will not take the idea of "AI rights" seriously.

From a materialist philosophical perspective, whether an AI is a "person" should be independent of whether humans are inclined to view it as one. However, certain non-materialist philosophies might suppose actual reality to be more in accord with those human perceptions – e.g. if sufficiently many soul-bearers reasonably believe something has (or ought to have) a soul, God would feel thereby obliged to endow it with one. (The idea doesn't necessarily have to be theistic: one could suppose there exists some kind of impersonal transcendent law of soul-endowment, much like how karma is viewed in Buddhism and Hinduism.)

Re: Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain

#370

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

bee_rider wrote: post #242
neom wrote: post #78

My mum is a shrink, and very old, and smart, and hates technology. I was talking her through how some primitive "AGI" could happen with 4o (basically just explained this: https://b.h4x.zip/agi ) That got us talking about consciousness, and at the end, she thought about it for about a minute and then said "if I can't give it lysergic acid and make it see god, it's not conscious" and went back to making her dinner.

That seems more like a good natured refusal to engage with the question seriously. Sort of like, if you come to a smart engineer with a design for a perpetual motion machine, they might likely tease you a little bit and then refer you to a physicist. Smart people from applied fields know when the topics are outside their actual wheelhouse, but getting close enough that they risk being taken seriously, to a misleading…

As someone whose experience with ketamine therapy profoundly changed my life, I think she was making a slightly different, sly point.

As someone who isn't religious, and who doesn't have children, and who hit middle age a bit disillusioned with my career, I struggled a lot with my life's purpose (nevermind chronic depression). But I don't think it's really an exaggeration to say that a single dose of ketamine therapy (this was an hour long infusion at a clinic) made me understand that for me, really, consciousness and existence is enough of a reason for my life's purpose. Throughout nearly my entire trip I kept thinking "how amazing is it that my brain doing this???" I think I understand computational theories of the mind well enough, but they in no way explain why consciousness would "fall out" of computation.

I think people sort of intuitively grasp that consciousness is something really different than the "normal" physical world. I think the quote of "if I can't give it lysergic acid and make it see god, it's not conscious" is about the fact that psychedelics provide even more clear insight into the "consciousness is something different" idea. Some people interpret that as God. As a non-religious person I didn't necessarily interpret that as "God", but I did interpret it as consciousness being something wholly different than normal physical matter or just the "math of linear algebra". For me it's a wondrous, magical thing, and I'm just glad I get to experience it.

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