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Could AIs Become Conscious?

economist.com

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Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#101

Post by goatlover »

xscott wrote: post #80
goatlover wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's subjective experience. The colors you see, the sounds you hear, tastes, smell, pain, emotion, dreams, inner dialog. The philosophical word would be qualia. I don't understand people who pretend to be p-zombies in these arguments.

Your definition is not useful enough. There are people missing any or all of those, and any or all of those can be approximated by a machine.

I'm not aware of anyone lacking all those experiences who isn't brain dead. What does approximating an experience by a machine mean? A chatbot can pretend to be cold. It can't actually feel cold as it has no body.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#103

Post by jfengel »

bigbuppo wrote: post #55
qgin wrote: post #18

We pretty famously can't prove that humans are conscious. I'd hold off from making strong statements that AI can't become conscious.

I'm pretty sure one of my co-workers is a p-zombie.

Heck, I'm pretty sure I am.

Or maybe I'm just saying that.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#104

Post by GPerson »

arde wrote: post #98
GPerson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you don’t know I’m talking about (various kinds of reductive materialism), it sounds like you’re doing exactly what I’m saying is the main rhetorical move in reductive approaches to consciousness.

Mine was a straight question you should be able to answer directly for any debate to go forward, not any "rhetorical move" nor any "approach" involving anything. Any rhetorical moves or approaches of mine, reductive or not, conceding or refuting, would come after your answer but couldn't come before it because your point needs this disambiguation. So again: please, without resorting to tautology from which anything c…

Consciousness is identical to the presence of qualia, that there is something rather than nothing, that the lights are on.

‘Reductive’ means the assumption that all phenomena reduce to what represent them in an external model or linguistic description.

Science, language, and reason are fundamentally reductive. So in practice the reductive assumption is just denying that things have an existence which is not identical to our models of them. And since these are the respected modes of thought most people are unaware that they are committing to a non-trivial reductive assumption when reasoning about consciousness.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#105

Post by grantcas »

goatlover wrote: post #6
drfloyd51 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you prove you are not merely mimicking consciousness? At some point mimicking a thing becomes the thing.

Consciousness isn't behavioral, which is why we can't prove anyone other than ourselves is conscious. Mimicking isn't going to work. But if you want a more scientific reason, LLMs don't have bodies, thus no sensations. What woult it mean for an LLM to feel hungry or cold?

[dead]

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#106

Post by NuclearPM »

fingerlocks wrote: post #92
fyredge wrote: post #88

I will stand by my view that AI cannot be "conscious" until model.train() and model.eval() is combined into one. Going further, it will only manifest when the underlying model, not just the weights, but the layers and the nodes and their configurations are allowed to change throughout it's life cycle, not in the service of a predetermined output, but for the sake of its own survival. But alas, such a model will have…

Additionally, the models need to breed with each other and produce offspring models by merging a random selection of their weights. Only models suitably fit to attract a model mate will pass their weights to future generations of models. Predatory models will emerge, pillaging and raping data centers to consume their resources. In response, collective like-minded models will form sustainable societies that enforce ru…

There’s no reason to think that consciousness requires evolution

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#107

Post by andsoitis »

NuclearPM wrote: post #106
fingerlocks wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, the models need to breed with each other and produce offspring models by merging a random selection of their weights. Only models suitably fit to attract a model mate will pass their weights to future generations of models. Predatory models will emerge, pillaging and raping data centers to consume their resources. In response, collective like-minded models will form sustainable societies that enforce ru…

There’s no reason to think that consciousness requires evolution

> There’s no reason to think that consciousness requires evolution

but it is the only process we know of that has produced consciousness. so why would one not start with that?

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#108

Post by NuclearPM »

andsoitis wrote: post #107
NuclearPM wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no reason to think that consciousness requires evolution

> There’s no reason to think that consciousness requires evolution but it is the only process we know of that has produced consciousness. so why would one not start with that?

Because it’s expensive.

Re: Could AIs Become Conscious?

#110

Post by threethirtytwo »

dwd wrote: post #75
threethirtytwo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a bucket of things. Putting subjective experience to the side, the main components could be: - An internal model that is actively revised (the Markov blanket/s) - A continuing active resolution of inputs (either sensory or the ability to simulate "dream" - basically aliveness) - A persistent state of completed resolutions that are recursively reentered and affect the future resolutions. Everything we…

You just attempted to define consciousness here with a series of arbitrary features.

Don’t not see how you’re making it up? The sounding and spelling of the word itself is made up. Then your attribution of these arbitrary features like an actively revised internal model to the definition is also made up.

You are debating about a language problem. Vocabulary. Vocabulary is not a profound or interesting problem. That is what the whole “what is consciousness” issue revolves around.

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