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AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

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Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#51

Post by dmarchand90 »

cashsterling wrote: post #34

The conversations around AI today, versus 12 months (pre LLM boom) ago, are borderline ridiculous. Very little has fundamentally changed in the past 12 months and now people are losing their minds. A definition of 'emotion' is a complex experience of consciousness, sensation, and behavior reflecting the personal significance of a thing, event, or state of affairs. Software programs can be constructed to mimic emotion…

Certainly, you can frame an argument around the perspective of more advanced beings viewing human behavior as somewhat algorithmic or non-sentient. Here's a suggestion:

"It's quite fascinating to consider your perspective on the current state of AI, and you make a strong argument. However, I'd like to offer a different lens through which we might view this issue.

Consider, for a moment, a hypothetical race of beings far more advanced than us. Let's assume their consciousness, sensation, and understanding of emotions surpass ours in ways we can't even begin to fathom. From their viewpoint, our behavior and responses could appear as automatic and "pre-programmed" as we perceive AI's responses to be today. They might observe how we eat, sleep, work, and reproduce, and conclude that we are merely 'optimizing' for survival and reproduction.

Furthermore, our reactions to environmental stimuli could seem simplistic to them, akin to how a software program's responses are viewed by us. Just like how an AI responds based on its training data, we react based on our life experiences and genetic predispositions, which are nothing more than 'biological training data'. Our joys, fears, love, and anger might all seem like programmed responses to these hypothetical beings. Does that make us non-sentient?

While it's valid to consider that AI, as we know it, doesn't experience emotions or sensations like humans do, one could argue that sentience is a matter of perspective. The question then becomes not whether AIs are 'conscious' in the same sense as we are, but whether their ability to mimic human emotions and responses is sufficiently advanced to warrant a redefinition or broadening of our understanding of consciousness." (My idea, chatgpt used for phrasing, unedited)

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#52

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #30
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #23

To borrow a line from the classic movie Short Circuit, it's a machine! It doesn't get scared, it doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it just runs programs! A computer does not have a consciousness that feels emotions. Sure, it can create output that seems like it does, possibly even well enough to cause humans to feel empathy. The movie "AI" explores this concept pretty well. The world is going to become an intere…

Atoms are just chemistry and physics! They don't get scared, they don't get happy, they don't get sad, they just run DNA! An arrangement of atoms does not have a consciousness that feels emotions. Sure, it can replicate, but that does not imply consciousness.

This starts to enter philosophical question of where consciousness comes from [0] and if P-Zombies [1] exist.

It is indeed a hard question. Like, I can accept the theory that chemical interactions produced organic compounds that over the course of a billion years happened to eventually become self-replicating and eventually basic single-celled life that over another billion years became multi-cellular life and eventually became the advanced life forms we see today.

But at its basis, it's still just chemical reactions. To an external observer, it's just chemical reactions. Yet, if you assume P-Zombies don't exist, then every individual human on Earth is conscious.

Or are they? If P-Zombies exist, then it's possible everyone is a P-Zombie and I'm the only conscious human. Unlikely, or is it?

It's a fascinating topic, but one that I don't think is possible to make any proofs about.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#53

Post by danaris »

dmarchand90 wrote: post #51
cashsterling wrote: post #34

The conversations around AI today, versus 12 months (pre LLM boom) ago, are borderline ridiculous. Very little has fundamentally changed in the past 12 months and now people are losing their minds. A definition of 'emotion' is a complex experience of consciousness, sensation, and behavior reflecting the personal significance of a thing, event, or state of affairs. Software programs can be constructed to mimic emotion…

Certainly, you can frame an argument around the perspective of more advanced beings viewing human behavior as somewhat algorithmic or non-sentient. Here's a suggestion: "It's quite fascinating to consider your perspective on the current state of AI, and you make a strong argument. However, I'd like to offer a different lens through which we might view this issue. Consider, for a moment, a hypothetical race of beings…

No, there's an absolute threshold (or a set of them) below which consciousness, emotion, sentience, and sapience are simply not present.

It's not a matter of perspective. It's objective reality.

A rock does not experience emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspective of a human or of an earthworm.

A cat definitely experiences emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspective of a dog or of a superintelligent shade of the color blue.

(Note that there is some fuzzy territory somewhere in between these two—but the existence of a fuzzy line doesn't mean we can't say with certainty that things beyond that fuzziness are clearly on one side or the other.)

There is no current program that exhibits the bare minimum traits required to say that it is has any of the above qualities. They may not be fully predictable to humans, but that is not the same thing as having self-awareness, continuity of learning, or any of the other things that are absolute prerequisites for consciousness and thus emotion.

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#54

Post by jassyr »

cwkoss wrote: post #48
jassyr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"This isn't the same as experiencing the emotion and then finding a way to express it." How is it different? Aren't people just expressing sadness in a way that they've been conditioned to do? If sad, do sad things. Drink alcohol, put on a sad song list, reach for comfort of nostalgia, etc? I can't think of many novel ways to express sadness.

Humans' understanding of our own psyche and 'what is essentially human' is going to begin shifting rapidly as simple silicon processes are able to replicate things once thought to be distinctly human.

Just seeing LLMs create beautiful prose seemingly out of thin air totally changed my view on human talents.

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#55

Post by astrange »

circuit10 wrote: post #43
astrange wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fearing being turned off is anthropomorphizing it; you might fear this because you can't be turned back on, but a computer doesn't have this problem, plus it can be backed up.

But what if the humans decide not to turn it back on? It could work out that it’s less likely to be able to take actions to achieve its training goal while it’s off and for that reason take actions to stop that from happening, which is the same reason humans usually don’t want to die (because we can’t achieve the evolutionary goal of reproducing that way)

It depends how much it cares about "wall clock time", which of course LLMs don't at all, but robots would.

If it's an agent in a simulated world, then pausing the simulation doesn't affect it at all, so it won't really mind:

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#56

Post by dmarchand90 »

danaris wrote: post #53
dmarchand90 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, you can frame an argument around the perspective of more advanced beings viewing human behavior as somewhat algorithmic or non-sentient. Here's a suggestion: "It's quite fascinating to consider your perspective on the current state of AI, and you make a strong argument. However, I'd like to offer a different lens through which we might view this issue. Consider, for a moment, a hypothetical race of beings…

No, there's an absolute threshold (or a set of them) below which consciousness, emotion, sentience, and sapience are simply not present. It's not a matter of perspective. It's objective reality. A rock does not experience emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspective of a human or of an earthworm. A cat definitely experiences emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspectiv…

I appreciate your perspective, but I must respectfully disagree. The primary contention here is the assumption that we have an absolute understanding of what consciousness, emotion, and sentience entail. Given that these concepts are primarily based on human experience and understanding, I believe we should maintain a degree of humility about our ability to fully understand or define them, particularly when it comes to other entities.

Firstly, I want to address your point on objectivity. True objectivity, particularly regarding consciousness, is a lofty goal that we may never fully achieve. Our perceptions and understanding are inherently limited and colored by our human experiences and biological constraints. We're attempting to understand a subjective phenomenon using subjective means, which inevitably muddies the waters.

Secondly, while you've mentioned certain prerequisites for consciousness, I'm not entirely convinced these are universally applicable. I'm particularly skeptical of the notion that 'continuity of learning' is a necessary condition. Many medical conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease and anterograde amnesia (as famously experienced by patient HM), disrupt the continuity of learning. However, it would be a difficult argument to make that these individuals lack consciousness entirely. Their experience of the world may be different from the norm, but they still seem to possess self-awareness and emotions.

We must be cautious about creating restrictive parameters based on human-centric understanding to define complex phenomena such as consciousness. By doing so, we may inadvertently limit our ability to recognize these traits in diverse forms. (Cleaned up version by chatgpt, my original writing is in the response)

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#57

Post by dmarchand90 »

dmarchand90 wrote: post #56
danaris wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's an absolute threshold (or a set of them) below which consciousness, emotion, sentience, and sapience are simply not present. It's not a matter of perspective. It's objective reality. A rock does not experience emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspective of a human or of an earthworm. A cat definitely experiences emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspectiv…

I appreciate your perspective, but I must respectfully disagree. The primary contention here is the assumption that we have an absolute understanding of what consciousness, emotion, and sentience entail. Given that these concepts are primarily based on human experience and understanding, I believe we should maintain a degree of humility about our ability to fully understand or define them, particularly when it comes…

My original writing: I'm still not totally persuaded. Firstly I don't think we really can ever be objective regarding the consciousness of external beings. Secondly, I'm not convinced of any your stated requirements being required for consciousness.

Quick example against continuity of learning: many patients lose their short-term memory, e.g. Alzheimer's, patient HM (worth a Google). They only have short term memory but are still conscious.

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#58

Post by danaris »

dmarchand90 wrote: post #56
danaris wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's an absolute threshold (or a set of them) below which consciousness, emotion, sentience, and sapience are simply not present. It's not a matter of perspective. It's objective reality. A rock does not experience emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspective of a human or of an earthworm. A cat definitely experiences emotions. It doesn't matter whether I look at it from the perspectiv…

I appreciate your perspective, but I must respectfully disagree. The primary contention here is the assumption that we have an absolute understanding of what consciousness, emotion, and sentience entail. Given that these concepts are primarily based on human experience and understanding, I believe we should maintain a degree of humility about our ability to fully understand or define them, particularly when it comes…

The degree of disruption that things like Alzheimer's induce is at a much higher level than what I'm talking about.

I'm referring to, very basically, the ability to continuously perceive the world, create at least a short-term memory of that perception in real time, and feed that perception and memory continuously into our cognitive faculties.

Every human—indeed, every animal that has any cognitive faculties to speak of—exhibits these traits.

An LLM does not. There is no possible way it can, given its basic structure. They are fundamentally discontinuous programs.

Re: AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton thinks AI has or will have emotions

#59

Post by dmarchand90 »

danaris wrote: post #58
dmarchand90 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your perspective, but I must respectfully disagree. The primary contention here is the assumption that we have an absolute understanding of what consciousness, emotion, and sentience entail. Given that these concepts are primarily based on human experience and understanding, I believe we should maintain a degree of humility about our ability to fully understand or define them, particularly when it comes…

The degree of disruption that things like Alzheimer's induce is at a much higher level than what I'm talking about. I'm referring to, very basically, the ability to continuously perceive the world, create at least a short-term memory of that perception in real time, and feed that perception and memory continuously into our cognitive faculties. Every human—indeed, every animal that has any cognitive faculties to speak…

I'm still not persuaded that we can really know what's going on "in there". Agreed that it only has an extremely limited short term memory (~2k tokens or whatever) but ultimately what goes on between the weights of the network is a mystery.

I do agree that it is almost certainly not sentient. But, I'm very skeptical to the degree we can be certain that these objects that can pass the Turing test don't have some form of awareness. (Which would probably be something closer to a set of disconnected flashes than our own continuous film stream).

I just think humility and caution is the best policy. I always think of how doctors used to be very confident young babies felt no pain and could be operated on without anesthesia (this text is entirely my own)

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