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Ok, so say a self driving car has a natural language interface. It can describe everything it knows about its environment, its relationship to its environment,

Ok, so say a self driving car has a natural language interface. It can describe everything it knows about its environment, its relationship to its environment, and so on. And pretty much anything else that a decent phone or computer could talk about, given a few more years of advances in natural language processing, machine learning, etc. What are examples of things it might say that would cause you to conclude it must be "conscious", by your definition? Also, you seem to have ruled out animals like dogs or chimps. I've never heard of one them them describing their own consciousness. Are you saying they aren't conscious if they can't describe it? (should we not be concerned if an animal is in pain, if it can't describe pain to your satisfaction?)

mikeash 10y ago
A self-driving car built by humans would convince me of its own consciousness if it started describing to me its own consciousness, the idea of qualia, etc. But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. I'm not saying animals aren't conscious. I'm saying they can't prove it. Remember, if A implies B, then not-A does not imply not-B. I'm saying that if a creature can describe its own consciousness without having learned of the concept elsewhere, that's good evidence that it's conscious. If it can't, that doesn't mean it's not.
- drjesusphd 10y ago
  > But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. Not at all. I remember having qualia-like questions at 5 or 6. Particularly, "do you see red the same way or do we just have the same name for that color?" An AI could definitely ask these kinds of questions without prompting.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    How certain are you that you were never exposed to those idea previously, possibly in passing or even without explicitly stating them?
- deleted 10y ago
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- robbrown451 10y ago
  Are you aware of a human ever describing their own consciousness or qualia without having been exposed to the idea first? I understand your "can't prove it" regarding animals, but if your only way of "proving it" doesn't work for most examples, I would continue to say the concept is one that is not defined in a meaningful way, at least not meaningful when it comes to any sort of scientific analysis or even being able to say whether an entity other than yourself has it.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    I know at least one human did without being exposed to it, and I know at least one other human is also conscious. For me, this is sufficient evidence to say that humans in general are likely conscious. It would be very weird for the two of us to be different in this way. I agree that it remains fairly poorly defined, but I don't think it's correct to say that you can't even analyze it from the outside. There are many circumstances where you can't, but you can at least glean a little bit of information in some cases.
    - robbrown451 10y ago
      How do you know one human did? It is quite possible the concept evolved over a very long time, so no single human came up with the idea.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        I don't think that matters much. The idea that it would evolve over time in a population where nobody experiences consciousness doesn't strike me as remotely probable.
        robbrown451 10y ago
        So, you've convinced yourselves that humans are conscious (whatever that means). The point, though, was how do we tell if something else is. You haven't given us much in order to show one way or another if either an animal or a human-created thing is. So I'm saying the concept is so weakly defined as to be essentially meaningless. Also, you say that because humans have somehow developed the ability to talk about something, it must exist. What exactly have they said? That there is this thing that they can't define objectively but they swear it exists because it seems like it does? And that proves that it exists? Do you not see how circular that is?

mikeash 10y ago

A self-driving car built by humans would convince me of its own consciousness if it started describing to me its own consciousness, the idea of qualia, etc. But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. I'm not saying animals aren't conscious. I'm saying they can't prove it. Remember, if A implies B, then not-A does not imply not-B. I'm saying that if a creature can describe its own consciousness without having learned of the concept elsewhere, that's good evidence that it's conscious. If it can't, that doesn't mean it's not.

drjesusphd 10y ago
> But, crucially, only if it could be demonstrated that it had never been exposed to these concepts. Which is probably impossible. Not at all. I remember having qualia-like questions at 5 or 6. Particularly, "do you see red the same way or do we just have the same name for that color?" An AI could definitely ask these kinds of questions without prompting.
- mikeash 10y ago
  How certain are you that you were never exposed to those idea previously, possibly in passing or even without explicitly stating them?
deleted 10y ago
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robbrown451 10y ago
Are you aware of a human ever describing their own consciousness or qualia without having been exposed to the idea first? I understand your "can't prove it" regarding animals, but if your only way of "proving it" doesn't work for most examples, I would continue to say the concept is one that is not defined in a meaningful way, at least not meaningful when it comes to any sort of scientific analysis or even being able to say whether an entity other than yourself has it.
- mikeash 10y ago
  I know at least one human did without being exposed to it, and I know at least one other human is also conscious. For me, this is sufficient evidence to say that humans in general are likely conscious. It would be very weird for the two of us to be different in this way. I agree that it remains fairly poorly defined, but I don't think it's correct to say that you can't even analyze it from the outside. There are many circumstances where you can't, but you can at least glean a little bit of information in some cases.
  - robbrown451 10y ago
    How do you know one human did? It is quite possible the concept evolved over a very long time, so no single human came up with the idea.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      I don't think that matters much. The idea that it would evolve over time in a population where nobody experiences consciousness doesn't strike me as remotely probable.
      - robbrown451 10y ago
        So, you've convinced yourselves that humans are conscious (whatever that means). The point, though, was how do we tell if something else is. You haven't given us much in order to show one way or another if either an animal or a human-created thing is. So I'm saying the concept is so weakly defined as to be essentially meaningless. Also, you say that because humans have somehow developed the ability to talk about something, it must exist. What exactly have they said? That there is this thing that they can't define objectively but they swear it exists because it seems like it does? And that proves that it exists? Do you not see how circular that is?