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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

#231

Post by datadrivenangel »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #193
serial_dev wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stuffed animals I bought to my children were shipped to me in a closed container, better call PETA! There is no blurry line about agent mental health and whatnot.

The only logical outcome of object oriented ontology (the idea that objects have ontological constitution and possibly are worthy of being treated as ethical actors) is to attempt to benevolently instantly and without warning explode the universe to end suffering.

Exploding the universe violates my preferences.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#232

Post by evilfred »

eureka7 wrote: post #108
seethishat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is common sense. This is software trained to produce outputs. It doesn't feel anything.

How is this "common sense"? The question of what consciousness is, what it emerges from, etc. literally have no proved answer at the moment. Take this statement: "consciousness emerges from sufficient complexity in any system". Neither you or I can prove it right or wrong, but we can both make an assumption that if it was right, then there would be a way for an LLM to be conscious. I'm not arguing that they are, I'm…

for the same reason I don't think a pinball machine or ATM is conscious

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#234

Post by slopinthebag »

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.

If someone digitally modelled a nuclear reactor, would any energy be produced?

No, because the simulation is actually missing an important aspect, namely the causal part that exists with the physical material but not in the simulation. It’s actually that it’s missing these components that makes it a simulation and not the real thing. But for that you need the physical material.

So why would it be different for the brain? If nuclear energy can’t arise from abstract relationships, why would consciousness or anything else?

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#235

Post by mrguyorama »

beloch wrote: post #7
rmunn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint article, which can be read at https://archive.ph/IeSZg , is also worth reading. (IMHO, the original article is completely wrongheaded and the counterpoint is far closer to correct, but I'll post my reasons for that opinion separately).

"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 are plenty of people on this very forum who insist that LLMs ARE conscious, some of them even calling LLMs Sentient, and yet almost none of those people are currently marching in the streets to end industrial scale digital slavery. None of them are firebombing the headquarters or datacenters.

Instead, most of them insist we must accelerate this, do it more, give everyone hundreds of personal digital slaves.

It boggles the mind.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#236

Post by pasquinelli »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #75
pasquinelli wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you want to make that argument, I promise I'll read it, give it honest consideration and offer a thoughtful reply. Otherwise don't be stupid. Come on.

if you're interested it's called panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is a fundemental trait of the universe. it's an idea a little like solipsism, in that people have a reflex against it, but it's pretty hard to make a case against it any stronger than "come on man don't be stupid."

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#237

Post by trhway »

kulahan wrote: post #213
Animats wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why wouldn't we assume humans are special? We are, by so many metrics. We've become essentially a force of nature, rather than a simple occupying species. I find it much weirder that we're so dedicated to pretending we're normal. Just a normal animal, on a normal planet, in a normal solar system, in a normal galaxy, in a normal universe. I get we have to do that for science to be good, but I don't get why it carries…

>Why wouldn't we assume humans are special? We are, by so many metrics. We've become essentially a force of nature, rather than a simple occupying species.

and that specialness appeared when? in our mammal ancestors? our Big Ape ancestors? Australopithecus? Denisovan? Neanderthal? Cro-Magnon? Or only when we started agriculture? or only during Roman Empire? or only during Industrial Revolution?

That "specialness" is actually the religious "soul" in disguise - the "specialness" is used when the people hesitate to directly bring up "soul" in a supposedly rational people conversation where bringing up "soul" is borderline intellectual faux pas. And i'm yet to hear the answer when our ancestors got the "soul".

Btw, all those debates about AI sentience will become moot in just a few years, around 100T models (about the number of our neuron connections). We already have 10T models, so the wait is almost over. We'd be able to directly ask the 100T model whether it is conscious, and no human would probably be able to successfully argue against the model, whatever answer it would give.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#238

Post by mrguyorama »

pixl97 wrote: post #68
lesostep wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> She didn't really suffer, but her behavior was as if she was.

Wait what? Why do you believe she didn't actually suffer?

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#239

Post by mannykannot »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #183
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.

I will indeed hold that, and it was my point to go to against post you were replying to and bolster your position. They try to make a point about modeling but they back it up by talking about virtually modeling real, physical processes. If I model a hurricane with a computer nothing gets wet. If I model a hurricane with giant fans and sprinklers then things do get wet and, if I'm able to achieve a certain level of fi…

Ah, thanks - I thought you were trying to save the "a simulation is never the real thing" by substituting a different word when it is clear that the simulation is doing what the real thing does. This is a tactic I think of as "lexical hacking" and it is surprisingly common among philosophy-of-mind academics.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#240

Post by xelxebar »

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…

I believe you completely miss the point.

The interesting observation is this: when we judge something to have subjective experience, we are invoking moral intuitions. There is no objective measure we can perform (yet?), and it's not even clear whether such a measure makes sense. You may disagree, but this is still a central debate in serious discussion on "hard" consciousness.

I would say that your entire argument just begs the question by implicitly assuming consciousness to have real, independent existence. Does elan vital (the substance that provides the motive force of life) have mass? You're saying that this is a theorem; the article questions the entire premise.

> The cogito argument is about thinking, not qualia.

Bizzare. "If it rains, the car will get wet." Is this a statement, as you say, about rain? Descarte tries to prove the existence of his God and states an axiom. The atecedent "I think" seems to be about thinking, whatever that may mean, and "I am" makes an existential claim based on subjective experience... or something. Who knows why Descarte believed cogito ergo sum to be solid starting ground.

IMHO, your rebuttal here reads as little more than a complaint that something disagrees with your personal assumptions about the world.

You clearly got me riled up just as much as you did against OP, so thanks for the elan vital!

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