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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

#151

Post by Animats »

operatingthetan wrote: post #95
kaangiray26 wrote: post #84

Quoting from the Permutation City by Greg Egan: "Opponents replied that when you modeled a hurricane, nobody got wet. When you modeled a fusion power plant, no energy was produced. When you modeled digestion and metabolism, no nutrients were consumed – no real digestion took place. So, when you modeled the human brain, why should you expect real thought to occur?"

We've been so primed by popular media to think that we will invent AI and it will be conscious and we will essentially enslave it. I'm open to the idea that we could invent conscious AI eventually, but the word salad generators we have now are definitely not it.

> and we will essentially enslave it.

That part might not work out.

Yesterday's article about the automated CEO system indicates that AIs may soon be in charge as a routine result of capitalism. AIs are getting better rapidly, and humans aren't.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#152

Post by edgyquant »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #149
edgyquant wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are brains responsible for consciousness? Or are brains a tool that our consciousness uses to understand the world?

They seem to be. But that argument doesn't matter much because you can simulate the whole body. (If you want to argue consciousness is outside the body, I could get into the physics argument but instead I'll just claim that consciousness will attach to the computer too and if you have a reason it wouldn't it's your burden to say why.)

I don’t know where consciousness is but I think if we accept that you can simulate a brain exactly that doesn’t prove consciousness of a model as consciousness is a metaphysical concept really

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#153

Post by arionhardison »

Animats wrote: post #148
fasterik wrote: post #83

It's hard to read this article and keep track of all the philosophical confusions at once. Whether or not something is conscious (has subjective experience) is independent of whether humans care about it. Whether or not something is a moral patient (an entity worthy of consideration by moral agents) is independent of both human care and consciousness. Of course, we might try to argue that consciousness implies moral…

It's another round of "humans must be special, right?" The author comes close to admitting this: "As intelligent, social entities, we decide (or, to some degree, our evolutionary history has decided for us) which other entities we regard as having inner lives and being worthy of care." Then he works backwards from that towards a definition of consciousness that makes humans special. AI forces us to confront an issue…

This hit me hard, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm not sure it's what makes "us human" its what makes humans (us) better than other species. It was intelligence, this was used to create distinction between us and other living beings, different races etc... Now its kind of gone; in some ways. Loss of meaning, purpose, place etc... The one thing we used as a ranking metric is now a commodity, so....? I don't even know how to finish that. So why care, why work...shit just why? Capitalism makes it even worse because we are judged based on what we output, does that even make sense anymore? I think the article is confusing because the "state: is confusing; to me at least.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#154

Post by chasd00 »

Noaidi wrote: post #115
fasterik wrote: post #83

It's hard to read this article and keep track of all the philosophical confusions at once. Whether or not something is conscious (has subjective experience) is independent of whether humans care about it. Whether or not something is a moral patient (an entity worthy of consideration by moral agents) is independent of both human care and consciousness. Of course, we might try to argue that consciousness implies moral…

> It would imply that it's morally permissible to torture a sentient being as long as no human cares about it. Yes, I agree. To me it reads as an apology to sociopathy.

i don't want to get too far into it but if no human cares enough to call it immoral than how can it be immoral? Morality is a strictly human invention.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#155

Post by [deleted] »

basilikum wrote: post #103
eureka7 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you making this confident of a claim? Do you have insight into how consciousness is a thing, allowing you to definitely say it doesn't exist in this case?

You could just as much argue that a stone has consciousness. Some people believe that. Insane describes it quite well.

[deleted]

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#156

Post by basilikum »

jampekka wrote: post #133
basilikum wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just as much argue that a stone has consciousness. Some people believe that. Insane describes it quite well.

Why is it insane? We have no idea how or where consciousness arises, or even if it's a coherent concept.

We don't know a lot of things. That does not make it sensible to just make up unfounded claims about them.

I don't know what you ate today. It would be insane for me to confidently claim that you ate two bananas and a pizza today.

The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. That's the basis of empirical research.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#157

Post by Dylan16807 »

edgyquant wrote: post #152
Dylan16807 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to be. But that argument doesn't matter much because you can simulate the whole body. (If you want to argue consciousness is outside the body, I could get into the physics argument but instead I'll just claim that consciousness will attach to the computer too and if you have a reason it wouldn't it's your burden to say why.)

I don’t know where consciousness is but I think if we accept that you can simulate a brain exactly that doesn’t prove consciousness of a model as consciousness is a metaphysical concept really

This seems like a different topic from whether consciousness "uses" the brain?

But I will point out we don't have a way to prove anything is conscious, not even a human.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#158

Post by mannykannot »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #143
mannykannot wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then, presumably, you will also hold that when you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain. Tendentiously redefining the word "simulation" in an attempt to avoid the awkward cases is not going to save an argument that was dead on arrival.

And then the argument about Consciousness becomes whether it is strictly and completely necessary for the input to Output process. There's also the question of input output range.

I'm not arguing one way or another on such issues; Here, I am just pointing out how irrelevant the "a simulated rainstorm does not get you wet" argument is, when presented as blocking the possibility of a brain simulation having a mind.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#159

Post by jampekka »

fasterik wrote: post #140
jampekka wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn't claim anything about what is and what is not conscious. It's about what we may think is conscious, and why.

It claims that there is no objective fact about whether something is conscious. From the second paragraph: >Consciousness is, in other words, a model or a belief, not an inherent property. It is a belief about what kinds of entities have beliefs, experiences, feelings, intentions and agency.

I read "consciousness" in there meaning attribution of consciousness, not as an ontological claim about what is conscious. The article seems to use this switching of the definition as a bit of a rhetorical device, which does muddy the point.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#160

Post by GPerson »

mannykannot wrote: post #135
ratelimitsteve wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that if it encrypts and decrypts, then you've built an enigma machine, not modeled it.

Then, presumably, you will also hold that when you have digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does, then you have built a brain. Tendentiously redefining the word "simulation" in an attempt to avoid the awkward cases is not going to save an argument that was dead on arrival.

“digitally modeled a brain such that the model responds to its inputs as a brain does”

If in responding to its inputs it experiences consciousness (=lights are on, experiences senses, perceives qualia), then you’ve built a brain. If your model simulates all the processing of a but does not have these then you have what’s fairly called a simulation of a brain. You can assert there is no such thing but good luck getting me to believe you.

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