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Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

3ammagazine.com

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Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#41

Post by joe_the_user »

djokkataja wrote: post #20

> What does all this mean? Watson may beat us at Jeopardy, but we are convinced we have something AI will always lack: We are agents in the world, whose decisions, choices, actions are made meaningful by the content of the belief/desire pairings that bring them about. But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian…

"But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian processes that got us here? Then it will turn out that neuroscience is a far greater threat to human distinctiveness than AI will ever be."

Ah, I get it.

It's that journalist twist. The threats supposedly presented by AI include some version of robot rebellion ("the singularity"), a crisis where jobs are still necessary to live but where few people have any sellable skills, and a blow to the human ego concerning human uniqueness.

What are journalists concerned with? The blow to the human ego? It's like the hyperbole of, say, one boxer described as "destroying" another by insulting them when the actual match will say who will destroy who.

I mean, I personally think it is good to put to sleep the concept of agency promulgated by certain views of philosophy. Neuroscience is useful here. But what a terrible way to start framing things.

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#43

Post by joe_the_user »

evdev wrote: post #40
djokkataja wrote: post #20

> What does all this mean? Watson may beat us at Jeopardy, but we are convinced we have something AI will always lack: We are agents in the world, whose decisions, choices, actions are made meaningful by the content of the belief/desire pairings that bring them about. But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian…

I think it largely comes from uninterrogated/unrevised dualisms applied to the scientistic world. I think of Rosenberg's eliminativism as follows: a) Platonic realism is the only way our semantic categories/abstractions could be meaningful. b) The world is physical (platonism is not true). c) All our categories are meaningless! Our abstractions are unreal! You can see it all follows from a), and there are serious que…

If instead of requiring various concepts of philosophy to be real, one simply requires them to be irreducible - not explanable as an ensemble effect of a larger system - then one winds-up with nearly the same thing. And I don't know how this requirement of irreducibility isn't a part of many philosophical views of the mind - specifically, isn't that what's important about "qualia", that they are irreducible?

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#44

Post by ArchTypical »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7
astrodust wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't do that because we're intelligent. We did that because we're assholes. Bacteria could wipe us out tomorrow given the right circumstances. They can be assholes too.

> They can be assholes too. Not really; they don't have any cognition. They're just little machines. They're no more of an asshole than a toaster or a clothespin.

Those barefoot lego landmines are assholes.

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#45

Post by captaincrowbar »

joe_the_user wrote: post #41
djokkataja wrote: post #20

> What does all this mean? Watson may beat us at Jeopardy, but we are convinced we have something AI will always lack: We are agents in the world, whose decisions, choices, actions are made meaningful by the content of the belief/desire pairings that bring them about. But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian…

"But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian processes that got us here? Then it will turn out that neuroscience is a far greater threat to human distinctiveness than AI will ever be." Ah, I get it. It's that journalist twist. The threats supposedly presented by AI include some version of robot rebellion ("the s…

>What are journalists concerned with?

The fear that AI might learn to write journalism, or at least clickbait, better than they do :)

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#46

Post by evdev »

joe_the_user wrote: post #43
evdev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it largely comes from uninterrogated/unrevised dualisms applied to the scientistic world. I think of Rosenberg's eliminativism as follows: a) Platonic realism is the only way our semantic categories/abstractions could be meaningful. b) The world is physical (platonism is not true). c) All our categories are meaningless! Our abstractions are unreal! You can see it all follows from a), and there are serious que…

If instead of requiring various concepts of philosophy to be real, one simply requires them to be irreducible - not explanable as an ensemble effect of a larger system - then one winds-up with nearly the same thing. And I don't know how this requirement of irreducibility isn't a part of many philosophical views of the mind - specifically, isn't that what's important about "qualia", that they are irreducible?

Why would you require this? Concepts can either be a part meaningfully differentiated from the whole (neocortex, hypothalamus -> the whole brain) or an aggregate that while reducible to more basic parts is meaningfully differentiated from other similarly reduced aggregates (neocortex vs. hypothalamus). What seems to define the demand for the "real" or "irreducible" is wanting the nature of reality to in some sense "do" this differentiation "for us".

And yes I would say that "qualia" insists on dualism.

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#47

Post by zeroname »

"Besides its economic threat, the advance of AI seems to pose a cultural threat: if physical systems can do what we do without thought to give meaning to their achievements, the conscious human mind will be displaced from its unique role in the universe as a creative, responsible, rational agent."

That's a bit of an aggrandizing characterization for the gang of monkeys that climbed down the trees a couple of ice ages ago, that almost nuked itself over a disagreement on the best way of distributing bananas, roughly speaking.

"We are agents in the world, whose decisions, choices, actions are made meaningful by the content of the belief/desire pairings that bring them about. But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian processes that got us here? Then it will turn out that neuroscience is a far greater threat to human distinctiveness than AI will ever be."

Oh my, a threat to our distinctiveness! Next thing those scientists will tell us that the earth is not the center of the universe, that the stars in the sky aren't fixed and that indeed Santa Claus himself is not a real person running a sweatshop at the north pole.

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#48

Post by [deleted] »

captaincrowbar wrote: post #45
joe_the_user wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But what if the theory of mind that underwrites our distinctiveness is build on sand, is just another useful illusion foisted upon us by the Darwinian processes that got us here? Then it will turn out that neuroscience is a far greater threat to human distinctiveness than AI will ever be." Ah, I get it. It's that journalist twist. The threats supposedly presented by AI include some version of robot rebellion ("the s…

>What are journalists concerned with? The fear that AI might learn to write journalism, or at least clickbait, better than they do :)

[deleted]

Re: Is Neuroscience a Bigger Threat than Artificial Intelligence?

#49

Post by daferna »

conjectures wrote: post #11

From a skim read this article is pretty sloppy. It argues that the human OEM theory of mind is in some way unique or unreproducible. This conclusion is completely unsupported by the text, which is just a sophisticated word salad.

Thanks, saved me a click.
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