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Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

economist.com

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Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#61

Post by pixl97 »

rmunn wrote: post #18
beloch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yet if we build systems that can suffer, and miss their sentience, we risk creating suffering on an industrial scale." -------------- Will we recognize AGI when it's finally made? Will we go from something that is not conscious to something that clearly is in one clean step, or will we murder millions of artificial lives while iteratively developing from the former to the latter? Will the tests we develop even work,…

I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the "I can't prove they aren't" part. Having taken a few philosophy classes in college, I quickly realized that you can't actually prove that solipsism is wrong. I can't actually prove that everything I see, every person I talk to, isn't just a figment of my imagination. And yet, I categorically reject solipsism anyway, as any sane person should. The world is real, other people are…

The difficulty here is AI agency and if AI believes it is conscious itself. If an AI system acts under the belief it's conscious and you treat it like it is not then it's very likely this will lead to conflict.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#62

Post by bluefirebrand »

dsign wrote: post #17
blatherard wrote: post #9

If I understand the central argument, which is confusingly stated, the claim is that "consciousness" is a socially-determined, subjective, descriptor for certain things that one cares about. How does this make any sense? If I care about my teddy bear enough it'll gain consciousness?

Your teddy bear, alas, is not cared for in a socially determined way. But you could create a church of your teddy bear and, with some grit, you could get people to widely assign consciousness to it. We have done that sort of thing for thousands of years, and not with fluffy teddy bears; it has been more often with rocks, though not exclusively. It's fun to think about how much of humanity's history and culture is the…

> But you could create a church of your teddy bear and, with some grit, you could get people to widely assign consciousness to it

That's not really the same as it having actual consciousness, even if people will wind up treating it similarly though

Humans have consciousness whether or not anyone believes we do

Or at least I do. I don't really know about the rest of you. I prefer to believe that you all have consciousness too though

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#63

Post by pixl97 »

derektank wrote: post #10
beloch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yet if we build systems that can suffer, and miss their sentience, we risk creating suffering on an industrial scale." -------------- Will we recognize AGI when it's finally made? Will we go from something that is not conscious to something that clearly is in one clean step, or will we murder millions of artificial lives while iteratively developing from the former to the latter? Will the tests we develop even work,…

I think it’s also important to disaggregate consciousness from suffering. We could create a conscious system with no ability to suffer (or no ability to suffer in a way we would recognize as suffering). Most of what causes us suffering (loneliness, pain, failure) is driven by emotional feedback granted to us by evolution. Without the same evolutionary pressures or a similar cognitive structure, even a conscious AGI m…

This should also split off desire/will/functionality to survive.

If we make AI that resists being terminated then the end result may not be significantly different from an entity that can suffer.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#65

Post by bluefirebrand »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #43
Charon77 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I stab at your teddy bear will you feel that it is hurt? Yes it will gain consciousness. You can't prove it but other people can't prove that it's not conscious either

You can prove other people are conscious off the assumption that you yourself are conscious. If you use that axiom then given genetics you know that other humans are rough copies of you so if you are conscious so are your copies because consciousness was copied.

> You can prove other people are conscious off the assumption that you yourself are conscious

I'm being a bit pedantic here, but no I don't think that "I am conscious therefore you must be too" is true

I think you can claim that it is most reasonable to assume other people are conscious but I don't think it reaches the level of proof

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#66

Post by pasquinelli »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #62
dsign wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your teddy bear, alas, is not cared for in a socially determined way. But you could create a church of your teddy bear and, with some grit, you could get people to widely assign consciousness to it. We have done that sort of thing for thousands of years, and not with fluffy teddy bears; it has been more often with rocks, though not exclusively. It's fun to think about how much of humanity's history and culture is the…

> But you could create a church of your teddy bear and, with some grit, you could get people to widely assign consciousness to it That's not really the same as it having actual consciousness, even if people will wind up treating it similarly though Humans have consciousness whether or not anyone believes we do Or at least I do. I don't really know about the rest of you. I prefer to believe that you all have conscious…

maybe a teddy bear does have consciousness too, in the same way you do.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#67

Post by datadrivenangel »

blatherard wrote: post #9

If I understand the central argument, which is confusingly stated, the claim is that "consciousness" is a socially-determined, subjective, descriptor for certain things that one cares about. How does this make any sense? If I care about my teddy bear enough it'll gain consciousness?

The argument is one of economic convenience. Caring about model welfare slows us down or makes it more expensive, just like animal welfare and not having slavery...

And there's a blurry line here. Obviously slavery is abhorrent, and animal abuse is bad, and factory farming often crosses the line into animal abuse and we should accept that chicken will cost ~25% more per pound to have the chickens be able to walk around a little bit... but how do we decide when a computer system is worthy of respect? Convenient not to think about that.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#68

Post by pixl97 »

lesostep wrote: post #52
beloch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yet if we build systems that can suffer, and miss their sentience, we risk creating suffering on an industrial scale." -------------- Will we recognize AGI when it's finally made? Will we go from something that is not conscious to something that clearly is in one clean step, or will we murder millions of artificial lives while iteratively developing from the former to the latter? Will the tests we develop even work,…

There is nothing wrong with murdering a million lives while iteratively developing – it's how we grow and study bacteria after all. Any person that fixed their gut by sticking to a diet also did exactly that. So if we are concerned with the AGI suffering, then we don't need to determine consciousness at all. We just need to prove that they don't have suffering capabilities. Which is a way easier question.

It's easy to say it's easy, much more difficult to prove what can be idealized as suffering.

My daughter said she 'suffered' when I didn't get her ice cream (I know, I'm a monster). She didn't really suffer, but her behavior was as if she was.

So yes/no suffering is only part of the equation. Building systems that act/react like their suffering could be even more dangerous.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#70

Post by retsibsi »

Plont wrote: post #25

I wish the AI bros would take a fucking philosophy class. Jesus.

Sadly, many philosophers, including some who are highly respected, make similar mistakes / play similar games. (Consciousness is inaccessible from the outside, which is epistemologically inconvenient... so how about we pretend it doesn't actually exist, or redefine it and hope everyone forgets about the thing we were trying to talk about in the first place? Aha, now all the so-called mysteries have been dissolved!)
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