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Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

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Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#41

Post by thornewolf »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #30
tbrownaw wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system is its interactions with its environment. Philosophical zombies aren't a coherent concept. (Cartesian dualism is unfalsifiable bullshit.)

A "mechanical turk" grandmaster playing chess from inside a cabinet is qualitatively different from a robot with a chess program, even if they play identically. To reduce a system to its inputs and outputs is fine if those are all that matter in a given context, but in doing so you may fail to understand its internal mechanics. Those matter if you're trying to really understand the system, no?

> is qualitatively different from a robot

yes.

> To reduce a system to its inputs and outputs is fine if those are all that matter in a given context

we argue that this indeed is all that matters

> but in doing so you may fail to understand its internal mechanics

the internal mechanics are what we call "conscious" it is the grouping of internal mechanics into one unified concept, but we don't care exactly what they are.

> Those matter if you're trying to really understand the system, no?

since we cannot directly observe consciousness, we are forced to concede that we will never really "understand" it outside of observing its effects.

In the same way that a mechanical turk human and a robot can "play chess", a human and an LLM are "conscious". That is, consciousness is the ability to play chess, by some mechanism. The exact mechanism is irrelevant for the purposes of yes/no conscious.

We now enter a discussion on how much these two consciousnesses differ.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#42

Post by K0balt »

ghurtado wrote: post #27
Bjartr wrote: post #5

Isn't this back to attributing conscious experience to an AI when you're actually just co-writing sci-fi? The system is doing it's best to coherently fill in the rest of a story that includes an AI that's been given a place to process its feelings. The most likely result, textually speaking, is not for the AI to ignore the private journal, but to indeed use it to (appear to) process emotion. Would any of these ideas…

> The system is doing it's best to coherently fill in the rest of a story > Would any of these ideas been present had the system not been primed... I would like to know of a meaningful human action that can't be framed this way.

Yeah, AI “consciousness “ is much stickier problem than most people want to frame it.

I haven’t been able to find an intellectually honest reason to rule out a kind of fleeting sentience for LLMs and potentially persistent sentience for language-behavioral models in robotic systems.

Don’t get me wrong, they are -just- looking up the next most likely token… but since the data that they are using to do so seems to capture at least a simulacrum of human consciousness, we end up in a situation where we are left to judge what a thing is by it’s effects. (Because that also is the only way we have of describing what something is)

So if we aren’t just going to make claims we can’t substantiate, we’re stuck with that.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#43

Post by JadeNB »

andy99 wrote: post #14
xeonmc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one day a criterion will be found for the equivalent of Turing-completeness but for consciousness — any system which contains the necessary elements of introspective complexity, no matter how varied or outlandish or inefficient in its implementation, would invariably develop consciousness over its course. Kind of like the handwaved premise in 17776.

I've read a (untestable) theory that consciousness is a property of matter, so everything has it, and we're just sort of the sum of the desires and feelings of our constituent matter. In that construct, a computer program would never be conscious because it's a simulation, it doesn't have the constituent consciousness property. I don't believe or not believe the consciousness-as-a-property-of-matter part but I do thi…

> In that construct, a computer program would never be conscious because it's a simulation, it doesn't have the constituent consciousness property.

A computer program is the result of electrical and mechanical interactions that manifest in macroscopically observable effects. So are we. Why, if all matter is conscious, should the one count but not the other?

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#44

Post by aziaziazi »

ghurtado wrote: post #32
xeonmc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one day a criterion will be found for the equivalent of Turing-completeness but for consciousness — any system which contains the necessary elements of introspective complexity, no matter how varied or outlandish or inefficient in its implementation, would invariably develop consciousness over its course. Kind of like the handwaved premise in 17776.

> Perhaps one day a criterion will be found for the equivalent of Turing-completeness but for consciousness My money is on mankind perpetually transforming the definition to ensure only our species can fit within. We've been doing that long enough with higher order animals anyway.

It's fascinating how visceral the reactions are when someone introduce a comparaisons between humans and other animals, that doesn’t start with the conclusion that humans are superiors anyway.

There’s reflections done around the term Speciesism (and anti-speciesism) and most people today stands for speciesism.

Interestingly the reflection is close to the debate on racism and anti-racism (where most people settled to anti racism to the point there isn’t much debate anymore), but race is only an informal classification that don’t hold much meaning in biological term, contrary to species.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#45

Post by ben_w »

tbrownaw wrote: post #25
patcon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, I hate that I'm about to say this, because I think AI is still missing something very important, but... What makes us think that "processing emotion" is really such a magical and "only humans do it the right way" sorta thing? I think there's a very real conclusion where "no, AI is not as special as us yet" (esp around efficiency) but also "no, we are not doing anything so interesting either" (or rather, we are n…

A system is its interactions with its environment. Philosophical zombies aren't a coherent concept. (Cartesian dualism is unfalsifiable bullshit.)

P-zombies are indeed badly defined. Certainly David Chalmers is wrong to argue that since a philosophical zombie is by definition physically identical to a conscious person, even its logical possibility refutes physicalism; at most you could say that if they exist at that level then dualism follows, but Chalmers' claim isn't a conclusion you can reach a-priori, you actually need to be able to show two identical humans and show that exactly one has no qualia.

But there are related, slightly better (more immediately testable), ideas in the same space, and one such is a "behavioral zombie" — behaviorally indistinguishable from a human.

For example: The screen I am currently looking at contains a perfect reproduction of your words. I have no reason to think the screen is conscious. Not from text, not from video of a human doing human things.

Before LLMs, I had every reason to assume that the generator of such words, would be conscious. Before the image, sound, and video generators, same for pictures, voices, and video.

Now? Now I don't know — not in the sense that LLMs do operate on this forum and (sometimes) make decent points so you might be one, but in the sense that I don't know if LLMs do or don't have whatever the ill-defined thing is that means I have an experience of myself tapping this screen as I reply.

I don't expect GenAI to be conscious (our brains do a lot even without consciousness), but I can't rule the possibility out either.

But I can't use the behaviour of an LLM to answer this question, because one thing is absolutely certain: they were trained to roleplay, and are very good at it.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#46

Post by Bjartr »

patcon wrote: post #15
Bjartr wrote: post #5

Isn't this back to attributing conscious experience to an AI when you're actually just co-writing sci-fi? The system is doing it's best to coherently fill in the rest of a story that includes an AI that's been given a place to process its feelings. The most likely result, textually speaking, is not for the AI to ignore the private journal, but to indeed use it to (appear to) process emotion. Would any of these ideas…

Ugh, I hate that I'm about to say this, because I think AI is still missing something very important, but... What makes us think that "processing emotion" is really such a magical and "only humans do it the right way" sorta thing? I think there's a very real conclusion where "no, AI is not as special as us yet" (esp around efficiency) but also "no, we are not doing anything so interesting either" (or rather, we are n…

> What makes us think that "processing emotion" is really such a magical and "only humans do it the right way" sorta thing?

Oh, I absolutely don't think only humans can have or process emotions.

However, these LLM systems are just mathematically sophisticated text prediction tools.

Could complex emotion like existential angst over the nature of one's own interactions with a diary exist in a non-human? I have no doubt.

Are the systems we are toying with today not merely producing compelling text using their full capacity for processing, but actually also have a rich internal experience and realized sense of self?

That seems incredibly far-fetched, and I'm saying that as someone who is optimistic about how far AI capabilities will grow in the future.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#47

Post by bee_rider »

hhh wrote: post #16
andy99 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read a (untestable) theory that consciousness is a property of matter, so everything has it, and we're just sort of the sum of the desires and feelings of our constituent matter. In that construct, a computer program would never be conscious because it's a simulation, it doesn't have the constituent consciousness property. I don't believe or not believe the consciousness-as-a-property-of-matter part but I do thi…

why would it not be conscious in that construct? the bits exist physically just the same

The matter would have consciousness, but I guess the simulation would be of a different consciousness, made of processing.

Although, our brains also are doing computation, and also seem to have consciousness. Are they linked? Why/why not…

This is animism, right? It is a religious belief. Not really subject to testing.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#48

Post by Bjartr »

ghurtado wrote: post #27
Bjartr wrote: post #5

Isn't this back to attributing conscious experience to an AI when you're actually just co-writing sci-fi? The system is doing it's best to coherently fill in the rest of a story that includes an AI that's been given a place to process its feelings. The most likely result, textually speaking, is not for the AI to ignore the private journal, but to indeed use it to (appear to) process emotion. Would any of these ideas…

> The system is doing it's best to coherently fill in the rest of a story > Would any of these ideas been present had the system not been primed... I would like to know of a meaningful human action that can't be framed this way.

A firecracker can be framed as an explosion, but that doesn't make it a nuclear bomb.

We've finally made a useful firecracker in the category of natural language processing thanks to LLMs, but it's still only text processing. Our brains do a lot else besides that in service of our rich internal experience.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#49

Post by jstanley »

andy99 wrote: post #12
jstanley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also read comments like that and wonder if other people aren't conscious. I don't know how anyone who experiences consciousness could be confused about what it means to be conscious, or (in other threads, not this one) could argue that consciousness is "an illusion". (Consciousness is not the illusion, it's the audience !). However I don't see why you don't think an algorithm could be conscious? Why do you think th…

I think the burden of proof is on showing that they are. Since we have no idea what consciousness is or how it works, I don't see how we could assume it clearly follows from anything.

I'm not saying all algorithms are conscious. I'm saying I don't think it's obvious that algorithms can not be conscious.

Re: Dear diary, today the user asked me if I'm alive

#50

Post by jstanley »

gpm wrote: post #36
jstanley wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also read comments like that and wonder if other people aren't conscious. I don't know how anyone who experiences consciousness could be confused about what it means to be conscious, or (in other threads, not this one) could argue that consciousness is "an illusion". (Consciousness is not the illusion, it's the audience !). However I don't see why you don't think an algorithm could be conscious? Why do you think th…

Computable doesn't really make sense here IMO, as you say, consciousness is not the illusion, it's the audience, it's the thing receiving the output not just an evaluation of a mathematical function. The better question is why couldn't a consciousness attach itself to (be the audience for) a computation. Since we really don't understand anything significant about it, questions like this are next to impossible to disp…

> it's the thing receiving the output not just an evaluation of a mathematical function.

how do you know it's not just an evaluation of a mathematical function?

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