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I'm honestly not sure why artificial intelligence comes up every time Penrose's hypothesis is mentioned. The point of artificial intelligence is not ( at least

I'm honestly not sure why artificial intelligence comes up every time Penrose's hypothesis is mentioned. The point of artificial intelligence is not ( at least in my and several other prominent AI scientist's such as Andrew Ng's opinion) to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. That being said, I'm not sure why there's quite so much vitriol towards Penrose and his hypothesis, the leveraging of quantum effects in photosynthesis and enzymes have been demonstrated and recent studies show that the sense of smell may also be based upon quantum phenomena. So it's not all too unreasonable that there might be something quantum going on, even if it's not Penrose and Hameroff's microtubules. Another interesting quantum hypothesis in neuroscience is Fisher's: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161102-quantum-neuroscience/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161102-quantum-neuroscience...

paulddraper 10y ago
"The question 'Do computers think?' is as interesting as the question 'Do submarines swim?'" - Dijkstra
bitwize 10y ago
> The point of artificial intelligence is not ( at least in my and several other prominent AI scientist's such as Andrew Ng's opinion) to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. That's only one school of AI ("weak AI"). The other school ("strong AI") says that it's certainly worthwhile to create an intelligence that is capable of thought the way humans are -- if only to get a better handle on what "thought" and "intelligence" really are. Currently weak AI is "winning" because the surveillance and online-advertising industries can get more use out of it. But that doesn't put strong AI out of reach, nor render it wholly irrelevant.
- deepnotderp 10y ago
  Currently weak AI is winning, but you forget that weak AI has always historically won. The annals of history ( as in the last ~100 years :P ) are littered with field attempts at finding "consciousness" and mixing neuroscience with philosophy with the occasional mathematician and once in a blue moon a CS... My skepticism comes less from a hatred of "Strong AI" and more from the fact that it has been promised over and over again with no results to show for it. In addition, every time "weak AI" makes progress, there's always someone who writes an article bashing the progress of "weak AI" and saying "it isn't REAL AI (tm)". This is kind of similar to the reason I dislike neuromorphic architectures, you can't just assume that you're right and look down upon all others, you need to show results if you want to do that.
  - lukas099 10y ago
    >My skepticism comes less from a hatred of "Strong AI" and more from the fact that it has been promised over and over again with no results to show for it. Could that just be because Strong AI is much, much more difficult to achieve than Weak AI? And not that it is less valuable an end to pursue than Weak AI? In other words, does the value of one vs. the other necessarily correlate to our previous success in one vs. the other?
- psyc 10y ago
  That isn't the common distinction made between weak and strong AI. Until we know what causes the internal point of view, it's conceivable that an AI could exhibit superhuman intelligence, as viewed from the outside, without itself having any view from the inside.
- goatlover 10y ago
  There is also the other form of AI, which is Augmented Intelligence, which focuses on augmenting human intelligence, not reproducing or replacing it. But weak AI might be included in that.
zitterbewegung 10y ago
I think the reason that Penrose's hypothesis is brought up is that the study consciousness are a part of human philosophy since its very beginning. Consciousness is seen in people to be totally the domain of humans and Strong AI represents either instills a sense that humans aren't special that they have consciousness and that is why there is a divide where people like Penrose things Strong AI is impossible and people like Kurzweil thinks Strong AI is possible.
- goatlover 10y ago
  Chalmers, Nagel & McGinn arguments are that there is a fundamental explanatory gap between objective processes and subjective experience. It's not because humans are special. Many other animals might be conscious. In Chalmers case, any informationally rich stream of data could be conscious, or possibly any physical system, if one wants to go all the way with panpsychism. The issue is the hard problem, not the uniqueness or humanity.
greenshackle2 10y ago
> Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. Seems morally relevant re: does the suffering of AI entities matter.
- komali2 10y ago
  What is suffering if you don't have nerves to transmit pain?
  - lomnakkus 10y ago
    Eh? Many mental illnesses would be classified as causing "suffering", yet the don't require nerves.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Name one mental illness, or any other state besides death, in humans that does not require nerves.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        s/nerves/nerves transmitting pain signals/, and the point still stands.
        lomnakkus 10y ago
        Indeed, I took that as a given, given the language of the poster I responded to.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    Suffering is not a signal from a pain receptor, it's the conscious experience that results from that signal, or indeed from the much more complex inputs that can lead us into psychological anguish. The feelings one might experience upon hearing of the death of a close friend are clearly not the result of a "nerve transmitting pain", but most people think they're pretty unpleasant nonetheless. If an AI can experience similar anguish, then that's ethically relevant to how we use them.
komali2 10y ago
Peter Watts' Blindsight is a great read that explores this topic. In short, an alien space-faring species is discovered that seems extraordinarily intelligent, but not conscious. There's a couple more twists exploring consciousness I don't want to give away but it really makes one wonder - what if high intelligence doesn't require self-awareness?
- barrkel 10y ago
  What does self-awareness have to do with consciousness? Self-awareness can be tested for. Consciousness can't; for all I know, I'm the only conscious person in the universe. Some people are evidently self-aware by their actions. The two concepts are unrelated.
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    I dont know why you are being downvoted. Solipsism is a real possibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
- aeorgnoieang 10y ago
  > what if high intelligence doesn't require self-awareness How could that work concretely? I'm struggling to think of how an agent could be intelligent, e.g. able to effectively achieve its goals, without being aware of itself. I suspect that, if you could communicate with one, any sufficiently intelligent being would be aware that it's a thinking being. What else does "self-awareness" encompass that I'm missing?
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    > be intelligent, e.g. able to effectively achieve its goals Well, a lot of very intelligent people never achieve their goals either. I'd suggest that intelligence is not the achievement of goals but the formulation of goals. And funny enough, people generally have no self-awareness about how they come to have goals. Some kid grows up wanting to be a fighter pilot. Why? Why does some other kid want to be a writer? Why do I like peach ice cream more than chocolate? Achieving the goal of getting some peach ice cream is a lot easier than understanding why I want to. Intelligent beings want things, on their own. Rational consciousness is just the tool we use to get what we want. The importance of articulated self-awareness to intelligence is probably overstated by humans.
m-i-l 10y ago
Even if some quantum effect is required for consciousness, and even if consciousness is required for intelligence, I'd argue that this does not mean we cannot simulate this - the Universal Quantum Computer[0], for example, was proposed by a researcher at the same institution at around the same time as Penrose when he wrote The Emperor's New Mind. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Turing_machine
SilasX 10y ago
>Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. It's certainly relevant whether your AI technique involves creating conscious, suffering beings!
- ebcode 10y ago
  Relevance is relative. So, relevant to whom? It would of course be relevant to the consciousness created, but how would the creator/programmer of the AI even recognize it as being conscious?
  - SilasX 10y ago
    Correct: not everyone would care whether they're creating a suffering, conscious being, or think about the topic enough to consider it a possibility. I still think the issue merits being called "relevant" in the context where I mentioned it.
    - ebcode 10y ago
      I agree with you, but... until we have some sort of "Test For Consciousness", I think it's safe to assume that we're not going to accidentally create consciousness just by writing computer programs --- even if the programs themselves do happen to make use of damn fine algorithms "inspired by nature". I think the more immediate concern is that we begin to turn over everyday life-and-death decisions (driving, obvs) to machines which are, at the end of the day, unconscious, and programmed by us oh-so-fallible human beings.
visarga 10y ago
I don't think quantum physics is the correct level of abstraction to think about consciousness. Consciousness, if anything, is a process at macro level, not atomic level.
unabst 10y ago
> Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. Exactly. It's the distinction between programming consciousness and physically reproducing it. The latter is for physicists and biologists. Equating abstractions with what it's abstracting is a mistake, but assuming something cannot be programmed or simulated is also a mistake. Anything observable can be abstracted. But to then think something can be accurately simulated without a good understanding of its nature is another mistake. So programmers should be following physics and biology. And finally, to equate the two when the simulation is accurate is yet another mistake. It's like mistaking the gravity in a video game for real gravity. They are never the same. But they are related: One is a simulation of the other.
- mixedbit 10y ago
  > But to then think something can be accurately simulated without a good understanding of its nature is another mistake. So programmers should be following physics and biology. Biological systems work and evolved into intelligent self conscious beings without anyone who understands how they work guiding this evolution. Similarly self conscious AI can emerge without people having good understanding of the source of the consciousness.
  - unabst 10y ago
    > Similarly self conscious AI can emerge without people having good understanding of the source of the consciousness. Any evidence? It's fun to think about, but most people who think this are guilty of one of the mistakes I've listed. Or don't consider it a mistake. Or are not programmers. AI, as long as it is software, is programmed with a very specific understanding of what is being programmed. Every line of code is intentional. Nothing exists in between the lines. > guiding this evolution AI is perfectly guided. Every program is completely understood (insert incompetent programmer joke here). Every symbol is typed with purpose on purpose. The point is, Roger Penrose is not talking about programs. He's talking about physics. When a programmer successfully emulates consciousness, every line will be deliberate, and they will know exactly how they did it. Not only that, if their program behaves like real consciousness, the programmer will have had to have knowledge of real consciousness. Otherwise what they've built would be something else. Something exciting I'm sure, but something else. All of our models (and programs) are based on our understanding of the real world. Hence, they are simulations. The deeper our understanding of the real world, the more accurate our simulations.
empath75 10y ago
Whether or not ai programmers and researchers are attempting to create consciousness, the question of whether it's possible for them to do so is relevant to people who are interested in what consciousness is.
wildermuthn 10y ago
Consciousness is vital to AI because there are vast amounts of data that can only be measured through consciousness — data that AI absolutely requires to solve the hardest human problems. This type of data is called "qualia" — the experience of pain, for example. An unconscious AI can process data about what causes pain: brain activity. Only a conscious AI can process data about pain itself, and only because a conscious AI measures pain from its own experience of pain. The same can be said of any conscious experience that follows the spectrum from fear to love, terror to joy. If we want AI to solve human problems, it will need data about what it feels like to experience reality, and that data can only come by being conscious itself.
marcosdumay 10y ago
"Quantum effects" is not the same as "quantum computing". This is the same bullshit as the D-Wave marketing, just in a different domain. Quantum computing happening in the brain is an extremely extraordinary hypothesis, and requires some very good evidence before it's accepted. Quantum effects happening on the brain is a "well, duh, and you'll tell me water is wet later?" hypothesis, and requires some good evidence not to believe in it.
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
>> The point of artificial intelligence is not ( at least in my and several other prominent AI scientist's such as Andrew Ng's opinion) to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. Your syntax is suggesting that you consider yourself to be a prominent AI scientist like Andrew Ng, but I'll assume that's just a mistake! As to what is really the aim of AI as a field, there are two issues here. On the one hand, the original AI project as conceived back in the early '50s by the likes of Turing indeed aimed at getting computers to mimic human intelligence. Everything that has happened since then in the field has followed from that original and grandiose quest. It's true that in more recent years the applications of AI have tended to be aimed at much humbler goals, like performing specific, isolated tasks at a level approaching (and sometimes surpassing) the human- select tasks like image classification or machine translation etc. However, this is by necessity and not by choice. Think of it this way: if we would benefit from a system that can perform select tasks as well as humans, then we would benefit a lot more by a system able to perform _all_ conceivable tasks that well (or better). In that sense, the motivation of the original AI project remains alive and well. Consciousness of course seems to be an integral part of human intelligence- and it's reasonable to expect that it would be a prerequisite for strong AI also. In that sense, yeah, I'm afraid the discussion about consciousness is part of AI and will remain that for a long time to come.
dilemma 10y ago
>The point of artificial intelligence is not to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. No. If it isn't conscious it isn't intelligent. There is no AI without consciousness because a non-conscious entity cannot make decisions independently -- react intelligently to its environment.
- eosophos 10y ago
  So algorithms, thermometers, and neural nets are all conscious?

paulddraper 10y ago

"The question 'Do computers think?' is as interesting as the question 'Do submarines swim?'" - Dijkstra

bitwize 10y ago

> The point of artificial intelligence is not ( at least in my and several other prominent AI scientist's such as Andrew Ng's opinion) to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. That's only one school of AI ("weak AI"). The other school ("strong AI") says that it's certainly worthwhile to create an intelligence that is capable of thought the way humans are -- if only to get a better handle on what "thought" and "intelligence" really are. Currently weak AI is "winning" because the surveillance and online-advertising industries can get more use out of it. But that doesn't put strong AI out of reach, nor render it wholly irrelevant.

deepnotderp 10y ago
Currently weak AI is winning, but you forget that weak AI has always historically won. The annals of history ( as in the last ~100 years :P ) are littered with field attempts at finding "consciousness" and mixing neuroscience with philosophy with the occasional mathematician and once in a blue moon a CS... My skepticism comes less from a hatred of "Strong AI" and more from the fact that it has been promised over and over again with no results to show for it. In addition, every time "weak AI" makes progress, there's always someone who writes an article bashing the progress of "weak AI" and saying "it isn't REAL AI (tm)". This is kind of similar to the reason I dislike neuromorphic architectures, you can't just assume that you're right and look down upon all others, you need to show results if you want to do that.
- lukas099 10y ago
  >My skepticism comes less from a hatred of "Strong AI" and more from the fact that it has been promised over and over again with no results to show for it. Could that just be because Strong AI is much, much more difficult to achieve than Weak AI? And not that it is less valuable an end to pursue than Weak AI? In other words, does the value of one vs. the other necessarily correlate to our previous success in one vs. the other?
psyc 10y ago
That isn't the common distinction made between weak and strong AI. Until we know what causes the internal point of view, it's conceivable that an AI could exhibit superhuman intelligence, as viewed from the outside, without itself having any view from the inside.
goatlover 10y ago
There is also the other form of AI, which is Augmented Intelligence, which focuses on augmenting human intelligence, not reproducing or replacing it. But weak AI might be included in that.

zitterbewegung 10y ago

I think the reason that Penrose's hypothesis is brought up is that the study consciousness are a part of human philosophy since its very beginning. Consciousness is seen in people to be totally the domain of humans and Strong AI represents either instills a sense that humans aren't special that they have consciousness and that is why there is a divide where people like Penrose things Strong AI is impossible and people like Kurzweil thinks Strong AI is possible.

goatlover 10y ago
Chalmers, Nagel & McGinn arguments are that there is a fundamental explanatory gap between objective processes and subjective experience. It's not because humans are special. Many other animals might be conscious. In Chalmers case, any informationally rich stream of data could be conscious, or possibly any physical system, if one wants to go all the way with panpsychism. The issue is the hard problem, not the uniqueness or humanity.

greenshackle2 10y ago

> Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. Seems morally relevant re: does the suffering of AI entities matter.

komali2 10y ago
What is suffering if you don't have nerves to transmit pain?
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  Eh? Many mental illnesses would be classified as causing "suffering", yet the don't require nerves.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Name one mental illness, or any other state besides death, in humans that does not require nerves.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      s/nerves/nerves transmitting pain signals/, and the point still stands.
      - lomnakkus 10y ago
        Indeed, I took that as a given, given the language of the poster I responded to.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Suffering is not a signal from a pain receptor, it's the conscious experience that results from that signal, or indeed from the much more complex inputs that can lead us into psychological anguish. The feelings one might experience upon hearing of the death of a close friend are clearly not the result of a "nerve transmitting pain", but most people think they're pretty unpleasant nonetheless. If an AI can experience similar anguish, then that's ethically relevant to how we use them.

komali2 10y ago

Peter Watts' Blindsight is a great read that explores this topic. In short, an alien space-faring species is discovered that seems extraordinarily intelligent, but not conscious. There's a couple more twists exploring consciousness I don't want to give away but it really makes one wonder - what if high intelligence doesn't require self-awareness?

barrkel 10y ago
What does self-awareness have to do with consciousness? Self-awareness can be tested for. Consciousness can't; for all I know, I'm the only conscious person in the universe. Some people are evidently self-aware by their actions. The two concepts are unrelated.
- goldenkey 10y ago
  I dont know why you are being downvoted. Solipsism is a real possibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
aeorgnoieang 10y ago
> what if high intelligence doesn't require self-awareness How could that work concretely? I'm struggling to think of how an agent could be intelligent, e.g. able to effectively achieve its goals, without being aware of itself. I suspect that, if you could communicate with one, any sufficiently intelligent being would be aware that it's a thinking being. What else does "self-awareness" encompass that I'm missing?
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  > be intelligent, e.g. able to effectively achieve its goals Well, a lot of very intelligent people never achieve their goals either. I'd suggest that intelligence is not the achievement of goals but the formulation of goals. And funny enough, people generally have no self-awareness about how they come to have goals. Some kid grows up wanting to be a fighter pilot. Why? Why does some other kid want to be a writer? Why do I like peach ice cream more than chocolate? Achieving the goal of getting some peach ice cream is a lot easier than understanding why I want to. Intelligent beings want things, on their own. Rational consciousness is just the tool we use to get what we want. The importance of articulated self-awareness to intelligence is probably overstated by humans.

m-i-l 10y ago

Even if some quantum effect is required for consciousness, and even if consciousness is required for intelligence, I'd argue that this does not mean we cannot simulate this - the Universal Quantum Computer[0], for example, was proposed by a researcher at the same institution at around the same time as Penrose when he wrote The Emperor's New Mind. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Turing_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Turing_machine

SilasX 10y ago

>Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. It's certainly relevant whether your AI technique involves creating conscious, suffering beings!

ebcode 10y ago
Relevance is relative. So, relevant to whom? It would of course be relevant to the consciousness created, but how would the creator/programmer of the AI even recognize it as being conscious?
- SilasX 10y ago
  Correct: not everyone would care whether they're creating a suffering, conscious being, or think about the topic enough to consider it a possibility. I still think the issue merits being called "relevant" in the context where I mentioned it.
  - ebcode 10y ago
    I agree with you, but... until we have some sort of "Test For Consciousness", I think it's safe to assume that we're not going to accidentally create consciousness just by writing computer programs --- even if the programs themselves do happen to make use of damn fine algorithms "inspired by nature". I think the more immediate concern is that we begin to turn over everyday life-and-death decisions (driving, obvs) to machines which are, at the end of the day, unconscious, and programmed by us oh-so-fallible human beings.

visarga 10y ago

I don't think quantum physics is the correct level of abstraction to think about consciousness. Consciousness, if anything, is a process at macro level, not atomic level.

unabst 10y ago

> Whether or not it's conscious along the way is largely irrelevant. Exactly. It's the distinction between programming consciousness and physically reproducing it. The latter is for physicists and biologists. Equating abstractions with what it's abstracting is a mistake, but assuming something cannot be programmed or simulated is also a mistake. Anything observable can be abstracted. But to then think something can be accurately simulated without a good understanding of its nature is another mistake. So programmers should be following physics and biology. And finally, to equate the two when the simulation is accurate is yet another mistake. It's like mistaking the gravity in a video game for real gravity. They are never the same. But they are related: One is a simulation of the other.

mixedbit 10y ago
> But to then think something can be accurately simulated without a good understanding of its nature is another mistake. So programmers should be following physics and biology. Biological systems work and evolved into intelligent self conscious beings without anyone who understands how they work guiding this evolution. Similarly self conscious AI can emerge without people having good understanding of the source of the consciousness.
- unabst 10y ago
  > Similarly self conscious AI can emerge without people having good understanding of the source of the consciousness. Any evidence? It's fun to think about, but most people who think this are guilty of one of the mistakes I've listed. Or don't consider it a mistake. Or are not programmers. AI, as long as it is software, is programmed with a very specific understanding of what is being programmed. Every line of code is intentional. Nothing exists in between the lines. > guiding this evolution AI is perfectly guided. Every program is completely understood (insert incompetent programmer joke here). Every symbol is typed with purpose on purpose. The point is, Roger Penrose is not talking about programs. He's talking about physics. When a programmer successfully emulates consciousness, every line will be deliberate, and they will know exactly how they did it. Not only that, if their program behaves like real consciousness, the programmer will have had to have knowledge of real consciousness. Otherwise what they've built would be something else. Something exciting I'm sure, but something else. All of our models (and programs) are based on our understanding of the real world. Hence, they are simulations. The deeper our understanding of the real world, the more accurate our simulations.

empath75 10y ago

Whether or not ai programmers and researchers are attempting to create consciousness, the question of whether it's possible for them to do so is relevant to people who are interested in what consciousness is.

wildermuthn 10y ago

Consciousness is vital to AI because there are vast amounts of data that can only be measured through consciousness — data that AI absolutely requires to solve the hardest human problems. This type of data is called "qualia" — the experience of pain, for example. An unconscious AI can process data about what causes pain: brain activity. Only a conscious AI can process data about pain itself, and only because a conscious AI measures pain from its own experience of pain. The same can be said of any conscious experience that follows the spectrum from fear to love, terror to joy. If we want AI to solve human problems, it will need data about what it feels like to experience reality, and that data can only come by being conscious itself.

marcosdumay 10y ago

"Quantum effects" is not the same as "quantum computing". This is the same bullshit as the D-Wave marketing, just in a different domain. Quantum computing happening in the brain is an extremely extraordinary hypothesis, and requires some very good evidence before it's accepted. Quantum effects happening on the brain is a "well, duh, and you'll tell me water is wet later?" hypothesis, and requires some good evidence not to believe in it.

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

>> The point of artificial intelligence is not ( at least in my and several other prominent AI scientist's such as Andrew Ng's opinion) to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. Your syntax is suggesting that you consider yourself to be a prominent AI scientist like Andrew Ng, but I'll assume that's just a mistake! As to what is really the aim of AI as a field, there are two issues here. On the one hand, the original AI project as conceived back in the early '50s by the likes of Turing indeed aimed at getting computers to mimic human intelligence. Everything that has happened since then in the field has followed from that original and grandiose quest. It's true that in more recent years the applications of AI have tended to be aimed at much humbler goals, like performing specific, isolated tasks at a level approaching (and sometimes surpassing) the human- select tasks like image classification or machine translation etc. However, this is by necessity and not by choice. Think of it this way: if we would benefit from a system that can perform select tasks as well as humans, then we would benefit a lot more by a system able to perform _all_ conceivable tasks that well (or better). In that sense, the motivation of the original AI project remains alive and well. Consciousness of course seems to be an integral part of human intelligence- and it's reasonable to expect that it would be a prerequisite for strong AI also. In that sense, yeah, I'm afraid the discussion about consciousness is part of AI and will remain that for a long time to come.

dilemma 10y ago

>The point of artificial intelligence is not to create a conscious intelligence, but to create intelligence that can do many of the useful tasks that we can do. No. If it isn't conscious it isn't intelligent. There is no AI without consciousness because a non-conscious entity cannot make decisions independently -- react intelligently to its environment.

eosophos 10y ago
So algorithms, thermometers, and neural nets are all conscious?