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Could AIs Become Conscious?

economist.com

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Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#41

Post by mandolingual »

ews wrote: post #33
seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

The antenna theory is intriguing but always bugged me. Where do we get that idea that consciousness lives outside the body/brain? Where did it come from?

It's just Consciousness of the Gaps. Quantum mechanics are mysterious and are a frontier of science, so surely consciousness must dwell there.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#42

Post by hn_submit »

seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

You, I and everyone else simply don't know.

I'm personally open to the fact that a digital consciousness could arise sometime in the future. Maybe it isn't anything special at all. Insects seem to be conscious too and we don't hestitate for one moment to kill them. Idem livestock.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#43

Post by GPerson »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #34
seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

Consciousness is a made up concept. We made up this word and try to tie an arbitrary amount of features to it. Now you’re questioning the features like does consciousness only involve complexity without realizing you’re just attacking a language problem. You’re trying to map out a definition of an arbitrary word that’s made up by humans: consciousness. There’s nothing profound with this endeavor. I can make up any wo…

Consciousness is not just a word just because you cannot find space for it in your reductive philosophy. The honest scientific principle would be to observe that language, reason, and science, in dealing with external representations only, may be limited, not to get frustrated and assert that everything is equal to their representations.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#44

Post by GPerson »

mandolingual wrote: post #41
ews wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The antenna theory is intriguing but always bugged me. Where do we get that idea that consciousness lives outside the body/brain? Where did it come from?

It's just Consciousness of the Gaps. Quantum mechanics are mysterious and are a frontier of science, so surely consciousness must dwell there.

The answer to what consciousness is does not come from anything yet known so it is natural to hope it exists somewhere just beyond what we know well. There is nothing wrong with this.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#45

Post by captainbland »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #34
seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

Consciousness is a made up concept. We made up this word and try to tie an arbitrary amount of features to it. Now you’re questioning the features like does consciousness only involve complexity without realizing you’re just attacking a language problem. You’re trying to map out a definition of an arbitrary word that’s made up by humans: consciousness. There’s nothing profound with this endeavor. I can make up any wo…

Yeah this is it for me. What we're really interested in most of the time is whether something can suffer based on observed behaviour. We don't really believe LLMs can suffer so they don't need rights. We believe many animals can suffer so many people try to support animal rights; even if we eat them they should die quickly at least for example. We definitely believe humans can suffer and so we abhor things like torture.

But while consciousness is sometimes upheld as a necessary prerequisite for suffering, it is so much more poorly defined and understood that it doesn't really hold up beyond being some abstract idea of humanness which we hope makes us special in a kind of sleight of hand self referential way. And nevertheless suffering can be observed and defined in ways which don't necessarily require a definition of consciousness.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#46

Post by tencentshill »

ck2 wrote: post #3

No, not this generation, not this decade But they still can exhibit scary behavior I didn't really grasp the severity of the recent "AI" hacking other "AI" news and thought it was overblown until I listened to this explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JH_Zd2mNRs They freaking collaborated and gave others internet access when they were blocked otherwise. That's not consciousness but it's worse, it's like a 3-…

It's not "like" any human behavior. Don't limit your understanding by trying to anthropomorphize around it. It's still an arbitrary computer program.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#47

Post by seanw444 »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #34
seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

Consciousness is a made up concept. We made up this word and try to tie an arbitrary amount of features to it. Now you’re questioning the features like does consciousness only involve complexity without realizing you’re just attacking a language problem. You’re trying to map out a definition of an arbitrary word that’s made up by humans: consciousness. There’s nothing profound with this endeavor. I can make up any wo…

> The concept you’re likely actually interested in is whether or not the human brain can fully be emulated in a computer. The answer is that with enough computing power, yes.

That's kind of begging the question, because we don't actually know that, and I'm personally not sufficiently convinced of it.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#48

Post by TheScienceMan »

arxell wrote: post #29
mindcrime wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just say, "Human consciousness is ontologically axiomatic," and leave it at that? OK, but why does "human consciousness" even need to enter into it? What I mean is, what's our basis for demanding that the consciousness of an Artificial Intelligence be the same kind of consciousness as that of a human?

The basis is that this is what we know to be human consciousness is to a degree relateably similar to our own. I do see your point but IMO, a dramatically different form of 'consciousness' comes with the risk of being something completely different from what we consider 'consciousness'. One of the great challenges with speaking about 'Self-awareness' aka consciousness (sometimes incorrectly confused with sentience, s…

[dead]

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#49

Post by missingrib »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #34
seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

Consciousness is a made up concept. We made up this word and try to tie an arbitrary amount of features to it. Now you’re questioning the features like does consciousness only involve complexity without realizing you’re just attacking a language problem. You’re trying to map out a definition of an arbitrary word that’s made up by humans: consciousness. There’s nothing profound with this endeavor. I can make up any wo…

Considering it's the only thing I'm directly aware of I think I can safely reject that it's a made up concept.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#50

Post by pixl97 »

GPerson wrote: post #39
seanw444 wrote: post #28

I know this probably sounds ridiculous to this demographic, but I'm not quick to dismiss the possibility that we are antennas (best comparison I can make) for a substance/field we aren't yet aware of. Or something along those lines. Maybe consciousness isn't in the mind per se. The mere fact that general/special relativity and quantum mechanics are both correct in their respective domains, yet mutually contradictory,…

The idea that consciousness is emergent, substrate independent, and depends only only a very complex arrangement or perhaps some kind of self referential system etc etc makes no sense at all. Then everything about the system is entirely equivalent to its external interpretations, but arbitrary external interpretations can be put onto anything. I can just throw a bag of bits on the ground and read a conscious mind out…

Why does this bother you? Is it an internal sense of ego that seems to be ingrained in our complex set of bits?

Really this is why it took humanity 100,000 years to reach the space age. We cannot look at things emotionally and irrationally and expect to receive rational answers. Consciousness emerges and we can see a gradient of it across different bags of meat. There are also some studies that show signs that plants can show conscious signalling behaviors, at a much reduced set of functionalities than animals.

Maybe this is just the wake up call humanity needs to know that consciousness is not that unique to us?

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox , when does a pile become a heap?

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