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The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

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Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#71

Post by mannykannot »

GMoromisato wrote: post #35
metalcrow wrote: post #13

I've attempted desperately to understand this paper after thoroughly reading it and have made 0 progress. Can anyone who does understand it attempt to explain? Currently my understanding is that this paper is claiming that "concepts" are a fundamental building block of experience (which relates to consciousness), and can only be built by a mapmaker which is something that directly converts continuous physical phenome…

It starts by saying that a simulation of something is not the real thing. A simulation of a hurricane is not a hurricane. That's certainly true and even obvious. Then they say that current AI is just a simulation of consciousness and therefore is not real consciousness. Moreover, it can never be real consciousness because it is just a simulation. But that's a circular argument: they are defining AI as a simulation. B…

On the other hand, an accurate digital simulation of a mechanical calculator really does calculate. The "a simulation is not the real thing" objection breaks down when the function is information processing, on account of information's substrate independence.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#72

Post by abeppu »

GMoromisato wrote: post #24

I think this is a circular argument. It defines a separation between computation and experience (between the abstraction and the "mapmaker") and then concludes that computation cannot be experience because they are in separate categories. There are really only two solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness: 1. Consciousness is an unknown physical something (force/particle/quantum whatever). 2. Consciousness is an…

I think #2 risk being incoherent unless you define things very carefully.

"Illusion" ordinarily means there's someone with a subjective experience which creates incorrect beliefs about the world. E.g. I drive on a highway in summer, I see reflections on the road, I momentarily believe there is standing water, but it's an illusion. What does it mean for the basis of subjective experience to be illusory? Who experiences the illusion?

> Pain isn't a real thing any more than an IEEE float is a real thing. A circuit flips bits and an LED shows a number. A set of neurons fire in a pattern and the word "Ow!" comes out of someone's mouth.

But we don't think the circuit has an experience of being on or off. And we _do_ think there's a difference between nerve impulses we're unaware of (e.g. your enteric nervous system most of the time) and ones we are aware of (saying "ow"). Declaring it to be "not any more real" than the led case doesn't explain the difference between nervous system behavior which does or doesn't rise to the level of conscious awareness.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#73

Post by ctoth »

Everybody's arguing about how silly this paper is (it is) and not grappling with the purpose of the paper. The purpose of the paper is what it does. This particular paper is perfectly-produced to show up when people type in AI consciousness fallacy to Google (try it!) it's something that anybody who has read a Freshman philosophy textbook will realize is silly -- the vehicle/content distinction just pretends like Occam doesn't exist and multiplies entities for the fun of it!

But of course all of this is commentary, "just those nerds arguing"

The purpose of this paper is to show up as an authoritative conclusion from a distinguished scientist at Deep Mind. And that's what it does.

Is the conclusion silly? OF course it is. Will it be quoted in the NYT? You Betcha!

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#74

Post by mcphage »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #61
vsri wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I resonate with this. I think some folks will object to the word "illusion" and it's connotations but I think it is resolved with: 1. Consciousness is a material thing (that we haven't found yet) 2. Consciousness is not a material thing (and therefore we cannot "find" it, and thus cannot be "known") 2 is the weirder proposition of course. It asserts a category of things that can't be conceived, but of course it feels…

2 is only weirder if you don't already accept non-material reality, i.e. the proposition There exist real things that are not themselves composed of matter and/or energy. That's crossing into metaphysics, which isn't usually a welcome topic here, but the fact remains that more than 80% of the current and prior world population believes/believed in a non-material reality. The persistence and stickiness of that belief…

Tiger got to hunt,

Bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.

—Kurt Vonnegut

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#75

Post by colordrops »

renticulous wrote: post #57
GMoromisato wrote: post #24

I think this is a circular argument. It defines a separation between computation and experience (between the abstraction and the "mapmaker") and then concludes that computation cannot be experience because they are in separate categories. There are really only two solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness: 1. Consciousness is an unknown physical something (force/particle/quantum whatever). 2. Consciousness is an…

With the emergence argument, I have the following retort. How can something emerge if it wasn't embedded or hidden within the system already?

I don't know, why not?

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#76

Post by dreamlayers »

As long as we don't understand how consciousness works, I don't think it's possible to make claims about what is or isn't conscious. It's all just speculation.

But if others are speculating, I might as well. What if AI consciousness depends not on computation, but on what seems like randomness? When something is running a fully deterministic process, consciousness seems irrelevant. I don't think the meaning that humans see in the process makes it conscious. Even a simple industrial control system using relays senses and responds to meaningful things.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#77

Post by energy123 »

TLDR - This paper argues for a separation between computation and abstraction and then concludes that computation cannot be experience because the abstraction is a product of our minds rather than an intrinsic property of the system.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#78

Post by colordrops »

brotchie wrote: post #70
GMoromisato wrote: post #24

I think this is a circular argument. It defines a separation between computation and experience (between the abstraction and the "mapmaker") and then concludes that computation cannot be experience because they are in separate categories. There are really only two solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness: 1. Consciousness is an unknown physical something (force/particle/quantum whatever). 2. Consciousness is an…

Originally rejected the paper premise, but I get it now, certainly made me question my belief that consciousness binds to any arbitrary information processing that's of sufficient complexity. IIUC the author is saying that the human brain is running directly on "layer zero": chemical gradients / voltage changes, while AI computes on an abstraction one layer higher (binary bit flips over discretized dyanmics). In esse…

Is there a layer zero though? What does that even mean? It implies the universe is designed and built upon layers of abstraction. That's just in our heads though, not out there. The layered model is a human abstraction.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#79

Post by mellosouls »

Nice paper, but the conclusion as the title:

"Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness"

(My italics)

Seems a little loaded: there are various schools of thought (eg panpsychism-adjacent) that accept the premise that consciousness is (way) more fundamental than higher-order cognition-machines (eg human brains) and we don't ascribe "simulate" to their conscious activity. They just are conscious.

I agree with the paper (which is wide ranging and interesting) on its secondary claim above; I just don't see the separation between AI and NI ("natural" intelligence) as having been established by it.

Re: The Abstraction Fallacy: Why AI can simulate but not instantiate consciousness

#80

Post by ctoth »

mannykannot wrote: post #60

There's interesting commentary on this paper from Maggie Vale here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-194580145 One of her points is that there are various pesky consequences for AI companies if AI becomes to be seen as conscious, such as what the paper calls the "welfare trap": if AI systems are widely regarded as being conscious or sentient, they will be seen as "moral patients", reinforcing existing concerns over w…

You noticed that too huh? It's weird ... It's not like they have to do this? They aren't forced to go full evil company mode by any extrinsic thing but even the way they frame it "welfare trap" trap? for whom?

Anthropic is actually trying to do some research into model welfare which I am personally very happy about. I absolutely do not understand people who dismiss it ... wouldn't you like to at least check? doesn't it at least make sense to do the experiments? ? Ask the questions so that we don't find out "oops, yeah we've been causing massive amounts of suffering" here in 10 years? Maybe makes sense to do a little upfront research? Which to be clear this paper is not.

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