4 ms·

My definition of conscious is being aware of what you are doing and influencing it. Can a computer running a file server realize it is only storing pirated mov

My definition of conscious is being aware of what you are doing and influencing it. Can a computer running a file server realize it is only storing pirated movies and stop it it without being explicitly programmed to do so? A conscious computer could.

Smaug123 10y ago
Are you sure that's a good definition? You yourself can't reliably stop remembering something even if you want to; why expect a computer to be able to do it?
- theseatoms 10y ago
  I agree that GP's definition is lacking. That is, he only kicked the can. Now he has to define "being aware."
  - sickbeard 10y ago
    It does not need to be defined. "Being aware" can be observed externally (by us) from an attempt by the entity to independently influence whatever state the entity was in.
    - Smaug123 10y ago
      So to be aware, it is sufficient for the entity to attempt to influence its state? Is a sunflower aware? It tracks the sun. You're just pushing the difficulty into the word "independently" now.
      - zardo 10y ago
        >Is a sunflower aware? It's more aware than a rock and less aware than an insect.
visarga 10y ago
> Can a computer running a file server realize it is only storing pirated movies and stop it it without being explicitly programmed to do so? A conscious computer could. Can a person from 1975 know your hard drive was full of pirated content? Probably he knows no title from your library, so he could not assume one way or another. It's as if specific "programming" was missing from him, or people from 1975 aren't passing your consciousness test.
- lgas 10y ago
  As a data point, I'm from 1975 and I can tell if you're hard drive is full of pirated software (but I don't care).
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
The question is - how explicitly? You, for example, can take a course in movie criticism and change how you see movies by applying patterns you are given there. It's a question of are there meta-patterns and meta-meta patterns. I've done things where a minimal set of rules in a filter led to very mildly emergent phenomena in control systems. I didn't tell it what the answers were; I told it how to find the answer ( this is much less impressive than it sounds - think of a filter into basically a running average ) . I joked that this was AI, but I'm not sure I was really joking because it's a difficult question. In the end, it was just a (perhaps unnecessarily complex) feedback leg. But it worked when nothing else would - but once you find the thing you're looking for, you tend to stop looking.

Smaug123 10y ago

Are you sure that's a good definition? You yourself can't reliably stop remembering something even if you want to; why expect a computer to be able to do it?

theseatoms 10y ago
I agree that GP's definition is lacking. That is, he only kicked the can. Now he has to define "being aware."
- sickbeard 10y ago
  It does not need to be defined. "Being aware" can be observed externally (by us) from an attempt by the entity to independently influence whatever state the entity was in.
  - Smaug123 10y ago
    So to be aware, it is sufficient for the entity to attempt to influence its state? Is a sunflower aware? It tracks the sun. You're just pushing the difficulty into the word "independently" now.
    - zardo 10y ago
      >Is a sunflower aware? It's more aware than a rock and less aware than an insect.

visarga 10y ago

> Can a computer running a file server realize it is only storing pirated movies and stop it it without being explicitly programmed to do so? A conscious computer could. Can a person from 1975 know your hard drive was full of pirated content? Probably he knows no title from your library, so he could not assume one way or another. It's as if specific "programming" was missing from him, or people from 1975 aren't passing your consciousness test.

lgas 10y ago
As a data point, I'm from 1975 and I can tell if you're hard drive is full of pirated software (but I don't care).

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

The question is - how explicitly? You, for example, can take a course in movie criticism and change how you see movies by applying patterns you are given there. It's a question of are there meta-patterns and meta-meta patterns. I've done things where a minimal set of rules in a filter led to very mildly emergent phenomena in control systems. I didn't tell it what the answers were; I told it how to find the answer ( this is much less impressive than it sounds - think of a filter into basically a running average ) . I joked that this was AI, but I'm not sure I was really joking because it's a difficult question. In the end, it was just a (perhaps unnecessarily complex) feedback leg. But it worked when nothing else would - but once you find the thing you're looking for, you tend to stop looking.