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If we use animals as a reference, I would say that consciousness is more fundamental than language, so most likely we need that in place before we can get AI to

If we use animals as a reference, I would say that consciousness is more fundamental than language, so most likely we need that in place before we can get AI to be able to effectively understand language.

adwn 10y ago
Do you mean "consciousness" as being aware of one's own existence and relative position in a larger reality, or as having subjective experiences (qualia, feelings)?
- Practicality 10y ago
  It's a state of being able to say "I am doing X, I am doing Y. I am thinking Z. (but not necessarily in words of course)" It's also a creation of an executive process that is separate from the analytic processes. The executive process can be aware of the analytic processes (Like we can know about our heart beating, but it's a separate process) Subjective feelings are not necessarily part of that. This article on how consciousness evolved does a good job of explaining how it works (finally), and I think it's something we could emulate. http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/ http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consc...
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  I'm going to give the opposite answer as u/Practicality here and say that it's the qualia/subjective experience. What's really extraordinary, currently not understood, and certainly a major part of actual human cognition, is subjective experience itself. Coding up a simulation that understands itself as one conceptual entity among many is not that interesting. The trick is having a subjective experience of that understanding. It seems to me that: subjective experience + sufficiently advanced conceptual understanding is what gives rise to, is the definition of, self-awareness. See my other posts in this thread for more thoughts on this.
lottin 10y ago
I agree. It seems to me that before language can develop you must have ideas, such as notions of space and time and existence, and in order to have ideas you probably need some kind of sensory apparatus that tells you things about yourself and about the environment you are in. But since we don't really understand how these things work, I doubt that we'll be able to recreate anything like it artificially.
- protomikron 10y ago
  We could call this the "Kantian Space-Time Assumption" as a precondition for strong AI. :) As others have mentioned, it is a philosophical question and probably one of the fundamental questions of our and next generations.
deleted 10y ago
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dwaltrip 10y ago
Complete agreement. How the heck could an entity (machine or biological) communicate meaningful ideas of any sort without a comprehensive understanding of the world upon which those ideas rest? Language isn't some side feature. It's a complicated interface layer that lives on top of an enormously rich, dynamic internal model of the world one lives in. The article barely touches on this fundamental aspect.

adwn 10y ago

Do you mean "consciousness" as being aware of one's own existence and relative position in a larger reality, or as having subjective experiences (qualia, feelings)?

Practicality 10y ago
It's a state of being able to say "I am doing X, I am doing Y. I am thinking Z. (but not necessarily in words of course)" It's also a creation of an executive process that is separate from the analytic processes. The executive process can be aware of the analytic processes (Like we can know about our heart beating, but it's a separate process) Subjective feelings are not necessarily part of that. This article on how consciousness evolved does a good job of explaining how it works (finally), and I think it's something we could emulate. http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/ http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consc...
marcoperaza 10y ago
I'm going to give the opposite answer as u/Practicality here and say that it's the qualia/subjective experience. What's really extraordinary, currently not understood, and certainly a major part of actual human cognition, is subjective experience itself. Coding up a simulation that understands itself as one conceptual entity among many is not that interesting. The trick is having a subjective experience of that understanding. It seems to me that: subjective experience + sufficiently advanced conceptual understanding is what gives rise to, is the definition of, self-awareness. See my other posts in this thread for more thoughts on this.

lottin 10y ago

I agree. It seems to me that before language can develop you must have ideas, such as notions of space and time and existence, and in order to have ideas you probably need some kind of sensory apparatus that tells you things about yourself and about the environment you are in. But since we don't really understand how these things work, I doubt that we'll be able to recreate anything like it artificially.

protomikron 10y ago
We could call this the "Kantian Space-Time Assumption" as a precondition for strong AI. :) As others have mentioned, it is a philosophical question and probably one of the fundamental questions of our and next generations.

deleted 10y ago

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dwaltrip 10y ago

Complete agreement. How the heck could an entity (machine or biological) communicate meaningful ideas of any sort without a comprehensive understanding of the world upon which those ideas rest? Language isn't some side feature. It's a complicated interface layer that lives on top of an enormously rich, dynamic internal model of the world one lives in. The article barely touches on this fundamental aspect.