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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

#251

Post by scotty79 »

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…

> Whether or not something is conscious (has subjective experience) is independent of whether humans care about it.

I'm willing to consider that consciousness is like art, mostly in the eye of the beholder and objectively defining consciousness doesn't make any sense, there's only a spectrum of intelligent behavior.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#252

Post by scotty79 »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #130
mannykannot wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet when you model an Enigma machine, it does encrypt and decrypt messages.

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

That's the entire question, isn't it? IF you model a mind, have you just modeled it or actually built it?

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#253

Post by hackinthebochs »

Jtarii wrote: post #227
slopinthebag wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the person was told in Chinese to jump in the air, would they be able to follow that instruction? If they actually understood Chinese they would. But since they don’t and they’re just mechanically translating symbols without actually understanding the language conceptually they would not know to jump.

What's stopping the book from containing that information? When you hear a certain set of symbols in a certain context you jump.

This just alters the thought experiment. What the thought experiment offers is a book of opaque rules, just instructions on how to transform symbols into more symbols without any concern for their meaning. What you're offering is a translation dictionary, what does it mean when one encounters X symbol. You're giving him a book on learning Chinese.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#254

Post by scotty79 »

Consciousness is not some maximal unattainable goal. Consciousness is level zero. It's single core, single threaded CPU running one program on narrow subset of data fed linearly. AIs won't ever be closer to consciousness than they are in the chat apps. They are already leaving it behind as they are doing many things in parallel and dispersed between multiple agents and their shared understanding and cooperation.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#255

Post by joshheitzman »

gqgs wrote: post #222
joshheitzman wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a computer and a stone?

A lot of answers to this question so it depends which layer you are talking about. Functionally,I'd say a key difference is that it's probably easier to perform general computation with a computer than to achieve the same goal using a stone.

If the computer is functional, powered, and connected to some some kind of interface allowing you to use it (e.g. network, touchscreen, desktop setup, etc.), then sure you can use it to perform general computation. But if its unpowered, is there any real difference between a stone and a computer in a debate about consciousness?

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#256

Post by dpark »

mcmcmc wrote: post #207
exe34 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is that thought itself might not be a real "thing", but just another computation. You can motivate this line of thought with the ship of Theseus approach: replace one neuron with a computer that takes the original inputs and produces the original outputs. There's no evidence yet that organic chemistry is necessary for thought.

There’s also no evidence that current AI can think or have thoughts.

What is the evidence for human thought?

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#257

Post by scotty79 »

rmunn wrote: post #5

Wow. I have rarely read anything that made me lose more respect for the author in a single article. And this guy is a VP at Google ? And he leads an AI research team ? His third paragraph, which is the core of his argument, is stupid . He says, "As intelligent, social entities, we decide ... which other entities we regard as having inner lives and being worthy of care." Yes, that's correct. "We do not care for others…

> Is this guy really, truly, seriously arguing that we first decide to care for an animal, and then because we care about it, we believe that it's conscious, able to feel pain and other emotions? That's just so incredibly stupid that it seems hard to believe that someone would actually make that argument

His whole point is that there's insight in inverting the "common sense" (aka sense of the commoners) about consciousness.

And I can see it. Some people cared for animals even though the religion and past state of knowledge told them explicitly that animals aren't conscious. But still some people treated them and perceived them as if they were.

You don't choose to be kind based on whether it can feel pain. You choose it because of your character and what you are willing to believe about reality.

Belief in consciousness is a result of an observation and since there is not strict definition this observation is interpreted subjectively and culturally. And in a sense, it's easier to both make the observations and decide they indicate consciousness after you started to care about something.

Obvious things aren't always true.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#258

Post by dpark »

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?"

This doesn’t hold up to even a little bit of critical right.

This boils down to “models aren’t real because they don’t affect the real world”. By the same rule, thought itself isn’t real. It’s an abstract notion that has no concrete effects in the real world.

Putting thought into action in the real world requires a linkage between the thinker and the physical. In humans, that’s the body. But you can put an AI into robot body and suddenly it also has a linkage to the real world and can have concrete effects.

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#259

Post by edgyquant »

mannykannot wrote: post #176
edgyquant wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Consciousness appears to be a biological phenomenon, but so too are metabolism, reproduction and evolution. Are these also metaphysical concepts?

Consciousness does not appear to be biological, that is an opinion and a highly debated one

Re: Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

#260

Post by Rendello »

dpark wrote: post #258
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?"

This doesn’t hold up to even a little bit of critical right. This boils down to “models aren’t real because they don’t affect the real world”. By the same rule, thought itself isn’t real. It’s an abstract notion that has no concrete effects in the real world. Putting thought into action in the real world requires a linkage between the thinker and the physical. In humans, that’s the body. But you can put an AI into ro…

A more accurate quote sidesteps the whole question:

> The question of whether Machines Can Think […] is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.

– Edsger W. Dijkstra

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra#1980s

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