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The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

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Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#31

Post by jsdalton »

jstanley wrote: post #14
metalcrow wrote: post #13

I've attempted desperately to understand this paper after thoroughly reading it and have made 0 progress. Can anyone who does understand it attempt to explain? Currently my understanding is that this paper is claiming that "concepts" are a fundamental building block of experience (which relates to consciousness), and can only be built by a mapmaker which is something that directly converts continuous physical phenome…

They're defining consciousness ("mapmaker") to exist outside the AI, and then showing that AI can't meet their definition of consciousness.

Yes, and it immediately called to mind for me the phrase “the map is not the territory.”

Put another way: no matter how detailed or “perfect” you make a map, it will never be the territory, ie the thing that is mapped.

Computers and AI are like a map in this regard —- just ones and zeros that we have assigned meaning to arbitrarily. No matter how “good” AI gets, it’s still just a map of the thing not the thing itself.

So AI saying “I feel sad” is never more than a representation of sadness that should not be confused with the subjective experience of sadness itself.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#33

Post by Anon84 »

I would argue that, before we can begin to address whether or not AI can instantiate consciousness, we should agree on a practical, unequivocal definition of what consciousness is... and I think we're still pretty far from that milestone... Until then, this kind of argument are nothing more than pipe dreams, solipsism, and idle philosophising

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#35

Post by GMoromisato »

metalcrow wrote: post #13

I've attempted desperately to understand this paper after thoroughly reading it and have made 0 progress. Can anyone who does understand it attempt to explain? Currently my understanding is that this paper is claiming that "concepts" are a fundamental building block of experience (which relates to consciousness), and can only be built by a mapmaker which is something that directly converts continuous physical phenome…

It starts by saying that a simulation of something is not the real thing. A simulation of a hurricane is not a hurricane. That's certainly true and even obvious.

Then they say that current AI is just a simulation of consciousness and therefore is not real consciousness. Moreover, it can never be real consciousness because it is just a simulation.

But that's a circular argument: they are defining AI as a simulation. But what if AI is not a simulation of consciousness but actual consciousness? They don't offer any argument for why that's impossible.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#36

Post by drxzcl »

Ekaros wrote: post #29
drxzcl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can make an AI system with a survival instinct right now. Of course, all that will do is make people tell me “it’s not a proper survival instinct” or move the goal posts and tell me I need yet some other property. This whole endeavor is doomed from the beginning. There is no crucial test for “consciousness”, just ad hoc criteria people come up with to land on the conclusions that leave their belief system intact. C…

I can make state machine that acts like it has survival instinct. But it certainly isn't something we would consider conscious. So I am not exactly sure how good most tests are.

But what would we consider conscious?

My position is that there is no actual, definitive answer to that question, and therefore it makes no sense engaging with the concept.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#37

Post by Exoristos »

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

I think this is a circular argument. It defines a separation between computation and experience (between the abstraction and the "mapmaker") and then concludes that computation cannot be experience because they are in separate categories. There are really only two solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness: 1. Consciousness is an unknown physical something (force/particle/quantum whatever). 2. Consciousness is an…

4. It is ἐνέργεια, direct spark, of the God. It can be described but not comprehended, imitated but not replicated.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#38

Post by twosdai »

tsimionescu wrote: post #25

I've never understood why certain philosophers view computation as some kind of abstract symbolic manipulation, while they easily accept that consciousness is a physical process. Computation is something that a computer provably does. We build physical hardware, at great effort, to do computation. The hardware works and does the computation regardless of whether there is anyone to understand or interpret it. If it di…

Really great point. I have wondered that as well.

Even weirder to me is that in the case of a person doing the computation on a board or paper or whatever medium, its still computation. This time the physical medium doing the work, is the human and their brain.

If consciousness can be proven to emerge from computation alone, then in a way we humans with our brains can simulate a new consciousness.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#39

Post by CamperBob2 »

GMoromisato wrote: post #35
metalcrow wrote: post #13

I've attempted desperately to understand this paper after thoroughly reading it and have made 0 progress. Can anyone who does understand it attempt to explain? Currently my understanding is that this paper is claiming that "concepts" are a fundamental building block of experience (which relates to consciousness), and can only be built by a mapmaker which is something that directly converts continuous physical phenome…

It starts by saying that a simulation of something is not the real thing. A simulation of a hurricane is not a hurricane. That's certainly true and even obvious. Then they say that current AI is just a simulation of consciousness and therefore is not real consciousness. Moreover, it can never be real consciousness because it is just a simulation. But that's a circular argument: they are defining AI as a simulation. B…

Also, since there's no way to prove that we're not entities in a simulation of something else, the argument runs out of steam in the opposite direction as well.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#40

Post by metalcrow »

GMoromisato wrote: post #35
metalcrow wrote: post #13

I've attempted desperately to understand this paper after thoroughly reading it and have made 0 progress. Can anyone who does understand it attempt to explain? Currently my understanding is that this paper is claiming that "concepts" are a fundamental building block of experience (which relates to consciousness), and can only be built by a mapmaker which is something that directly converts continuous physical phenome…

It starts by saying that a simulation of something is not the real thing. A simulation of a hurricane is not a hurricane. That's certainly true and even obvious. Then they say that current AI is just a simulation of consciousness and therefore is not real consciousness. Moreover, it can never be real consciousness because it is just a simulation. But that's a circular argument: they are defining AI as a simulation. B…

Yep that's about what i managed to get out of it as well. If you define AI as a simulation of a mapmaker, it can't be a real mapmaker. But they are never able to prove that it IS only a simulation, instead of an actual mapmaker.
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