AI doomism is quickly becoming indistinguishable from an apocalyptic religion

It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first.

What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.

I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.

My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461

" A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first."

is there anything that says this has to be? or is it kind of a definition thing.

I generally agree, but think there are some signals worth paying attention to.

I think the anti-AI crowd is concerned, because the very meaning of artwork and writing, two foundational elements of human creative expression and experiences, have been thrown into question and turmoil in just a matter of months.

Setting aside for a moment any hypothetical extinction-type concerns in the far future, I think there is a very understandable sentiment that is not borne of any doom mongering, but is based in the very real concerns, unknowns, and problems that have not yet been integrated or solved in the AI tech that is here right now.

I know that my personal feeling of unease stems from this deep concern that we've only barely started to grapple with the implications of generative AI, and it seems unwise to dive headfirst into net-new territory that is arguably far more treacherous.

It is Silicon Valley's default to move fast and break things. But when those things are the very foundations of culture and communication, the consequences of breaking things play out on a world-wide scale.

The geeks truly have inherited the earth, and hopefully we will not destroy it. If there was ever a moment to question our default intuitions about the importance of progress above all else, this would be that moment.

Yes, people need to bring their real-world concerns to the table, but it's also understandable that with the current pace of change, it's hard for anyone to get their arms around what those concerns are. In light of this, this needs to be an all-hands-on-deck kind of exploration. People should bring them, and practitioners should actively seek them out.

For time travel there is are physical arguments why it may be impossible in principle , but there are obviously no such arguments for technology which overpowers humans. I don't think any specific example is needed to show that humans can be overpowered by an superior intellect. Just imagine highly advanced aliens visit Earth tomorrow.

Yes, compute costs money, but for the human brain energy was way more restricted, since an substantial increase in energy demand would lengthen the time needed for finding food.

I agree, as to GP, I'd play the Russian roulette with my own life, but not with what is quite possibly every intelligent life in the universe (aliens are not known to exist). I would also require that the credibility of actually carrying out the task of preventing aging and curing all diseases is actually not some sort of trick and is going to happen in a reasonable way. Probably somewhere pretty close to P(1-epsilon) would be required.