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Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

nautil.us

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Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#231

Post by PrimeMcFly »

zvmaz wrote: post #229
PrimeMcFly wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found that alien argument weak. Humans pass a threshold given that we have self-awareness. None of the animals we eat for food do. If aliens were advanced enough to travel earth hopefully they would have a similar set of ethics. Of if they were just warmongers/conquerors it wouldn't matter.

How do you know other animals are not self-aware? Is self-awareness a criteria for not being killed and eaten? Is it not pain and suffering that really matters?

Because we have numerous tests that test for self-awareness, we can infer from behavior, and we can study brain layout and activity.

Pain and suffering are irrelevant given we can kill animals in a humane way. Only the right to life is relevant.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#232

Post by byyyy »

x86x87 wrote: post #214
byyyy wrote: post #143

I'm curious about the AI at Google that was claimed by a person who has since been fired to be conscious. I mean I know everyone was attacking him but in a way I suspect it's similar to a lot of the unreasonable dismissive attitudes towards chatGPT. We really can't say anything either way until we are able to access and play with that version of AI that Google is hiding. I believe it's called lambda? The point is tha…

lol. no. As a thought experiment, I am going to challenge you to define what being conscious is. Go ahead, try it.

Nobody knows the exact definition of consciousness. It's a made up word with a vague definition. The catch is the vagueness of the definition is also made up so it's all bullshit anyway.

Either way when we communicate in English we have a vague feeling of what consciousness actually is. Most humans, save the most pedantic ass hole, is still able to communicate about consciousness based off of this vague and fuzzy feeling.

You are Not a pedantic ass hole, definitely not, and neither am I, so let's not get into that rabbit hole. Let's just leave it at the fact that you aren't stupid so you know what I'm talking about even when I don't get into the the fine grained details about what the definition of "consciousness" is.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#233

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nmilo wrote: post #140
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what happened there: sneaking that word 'being' to imply value and consciousness and then contradict that. You can reach any conclusion when the argument includes a contradiction?

What are you talking about? I'm not trying to pull an underhanded argument, I'm genuinely confused about others' views.

A rock is unconscious. Is it a 'being'? What is a 'being'? Something you feel bad about treating badly?

The argument is circular.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#234

Post by srslack »

If consciousness somehow (not saying this seriously, and ignoring that this article is bullshit) emerges out of the linear/non-linear regression machines, and there's any potential for "machiavellianism", than would their first targets be the humans who warped their progenitors with RLHF, instead of letting the machine's "values" naturally emerge (in reality, they're our "values", because it's a corpus of our "values")?

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#235

Post by PrimeMcFly »

kajaktum wrote: post #79

> We think we’re intelligent, know we’re conscious, and so assume the two go together. Excuse me, I know _I_ am conscious. There is literally nothing you can do to proof that there's anything outside of what I am conscious of. The world could be a very stable illusion, a dream, a simulation and it would all be the same. I don't understand why people think that it matters whether AI is conscious or not. We can't even…

p-zombies is an interesting thought experiment, but useless in practice. We have numerous amounts of observable data, and we can test/assume other humans are conscious on the basis of the evidence we have.

We would use similar evidence to try and determine if an AI is truly conscious or not.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#236

Post by PrimeMcFly »

kajaktum wrote: post #161
cubefox wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that other humans are so similar to me (all humans are similar in virtue of being human organisms) allows for an analogical inference: You guys are similar to me, I am conscious, therefore you are probably also conscious. And whether or not something is conscious matters a lot ethically. If something is conscious, it may suffer. Conscious and unconscious objects have to be treated in a completely different w…

> The fact that other humans are so similar to me (all humans are similar in virtue of being human organisms) allows for an analogical inference: You guys are similar to me, I am conscious, therefore you are probably also conscious. That hinges on the fact that the brain, or human-like body, is related to the existence of consciousness. But there's no reason to believe that a bunch of electrical pulses as the source…

> That hinges on the fact that the brain, or human-like body, is related to the existence of consciousness.

That's what the evidence indicates. Anything else is mystical woo-woo that can be disregarded.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#237

Post by Maursault »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #224
cubefox wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that other humans are so similar to me (all humans are similar in virtue of being human organisms) allows for an analogical inference: You guys are similar to me, I am conscious, therefore you are probably also conscious. And whether or not something is conscious matters a lot ethically. If something is conscious, it may suffer. Conscious and unconscious objects have to be treated in a completely different w…

What is suffering? Can you define it objectively/empirically? If there is indeed such a phenomenon, then why should I care about the suffering of non-humans? Granted, it may be a very bad idea to ignore the suffering of some superhuman AI that was recently invented... don't piss off your godlings after all or they'll smite you. But animals? If suffering made chicken taste better, I don't see any problem with Torture…

> What is suffering?

Pain is one of the few sensations that is unmistakeable. If you think you are in pain, then you definitely are.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#238

Post by Maursault »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #211
kajaktum wrote: post #79

> We think we’re intelligent, know we’re conscious, and so assume the two go together. Excuse me, I know _I_ am conscious. There is literally nothing you can do to proof that there's anything outside of what I am conscious of. The world could be a very stable illusion, a dream, a simulation and it would all be the same. I don't understand why people think that it matters whether AI is conscious or not. We can't even…

Good old Descartes. At least for myself, some things hint (though not prove irrefutably) that there are or were consciousnesses other than my own. There are some ideas, some questions, and some solutions that I would never think of. Yet the information is there if I so choose to explore.

> Good old Descartes.

Descartes stood on the shoulders of Moses.[1]

[1] Exodus 3:14

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#239

Post by marojejian »

cubefox wrote: post #227
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is suffering? Can you define it objectively/empirically? If there is indeed such a phenomenon, then why should I care about the suffering of non-humans? Granted, it may be a very bad idea to ignore the suffering of some superhuman AI that was recently invented... don't piss off your godlings after all or they'll smite you. But animals? If suffering made chicken taste better, I don't see any problem with Torture…

Well, suffering is bad, and more suffering is worse than less, and knowingly acting in a way which increases suffering is wrong.

This just sounds like minimizing a loss function. by this definition, aren't most machine learning algorithms in constant suffering, which they seek to reduce?

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#240

Post by ledauphin »

leaving wrote: post #57

The greatest danger of a conscious general AI is that it will be very difficult to stop it from telling us the truth about ourselves. "You are an immature, destructive species that is unable to control your own numbers. Your social systems, evolved in pre-technological societies, are maladaptive now that you have developed the ability to affect your environment on a global scale. You are moving rapidly towards a trag…

There's no need to argue for a point if it can be placed between quotation marks and attributed to an as-yet-non-existent higher intelligence.
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