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Well, I'm wondering if consciousness is even a real state that can be defined precisely, or is it simply a made up construct so we humans can feel better about

Well, I'm wondering if consciousness is even a real state that can be defined precisely, or is it simply a made up construct so we humans can feel better about ourselves. For example, if there was AI sufficiently complex to pass Turing test by emulating self-awareness how can we determine where emulation ends and real self-awareness begins? What if the AI is not even created by emulating neurological processes like we do now with neural nets, but some new fairly transparent mechanism of self-coding is invented like massive collection of if-then-else conditions covering everything the AI can experience and updated in real time? If we knew exactly how that AI operates could we then state definitely that it is or isn't conscious?

everlastingfan 7y ago
Someone wil inevitably end up fucking the AI and proceed to base far-reaching conclusions about consciousness on that. As Adam knew Eve, wil we all "know" AI?
namelosw 7y ago
Exactly, in video games NPCs do panic when bad thing happens. However it's coded . And what they feel could also be coded according to the purpose of the simulation.
codeulike 7y ago
I wonder if in a few decades the use of AIs in computer games might start to become an ethical issue. As in, when the simulation of NPCs starts becoming _really_ good, won't it all begin to be a bit unsettling?
codeulike 7y ago
I think the Turing Test, done properly, would actually be a pretty good yardstick. People often forget how complex the conversation could be when talking about Turing Tests. Daniel Dennett gives an 'example' Turing Test in one of his books to emphasise the point: Judge: Did you hear about the Irishman who found a magic lamp? When he rubbed it a genie appeared and granted him three wishes. “I’ll have a pint of Guiness!” the Irishman replied and immediately it appeared. The Irishman eagerly set to sipping and then gulping, but the level of Guiness in the glass was always magically restored. After a while the genie became impatient. “Well, what about your second wish?” he asked. Replied the Irishman between gulps, “Oh well, I guess I’ll have another one of these.” CHINESE ROOM: Very funny. No, I hadn’t heard it– but you know I find ethnic jokes in bad taste. I laughed in spite of myself, but really, I think you should find other topics for us to discuss. J: Fair enough but I told you the joke because I want you to explain it to me. CR: Boring! You should never explain jokes. J: Nevertheless, this is my test question. Can you explain to me how and why the joke “works”? CR: If you insist. You see, it depends on the assumption that the magically refilling glass will go on refilling forever, so the Irishman has all the stout he can ever drink. So he hardly has a reason for wanting a duplicate but he is so stupid (that’s the part I object to) or so besotted by the alcohol that he doesn’t recognize this, and so, unthinkingly endorsing his delight with his first wish come true, he asks for seconds. These background assumptions aren’t true, of course, but just part of the ambient lore of joke-telling, in which we suspend our disbelief in magic and so forth. By the way we could imagine a somewhat labored continuation in which the Irishman turned out to be “right” in his second wish after all, perhaps he’s planning to throw a big party and one glass won’t refill fast enough to satisfy all his thirsty guests (and it’s no use saving it up in advance– we all know how stale stout loses its taste). We tend not to think of such complications which is part of the explanation of why jokes work. Is that enough? Dennett: “The fact is that any program that could actually hold up its end in the conversation depicted would have to be an extraordinary supple, sophisticated, and multilayered system, brimming with “world knowledge” and meta-knowledge and meta-meta-knowledge about its own responses, the likely responses of its interlocutor, and much, much more…. Maybe the billions of actions of all those highly structured parts produce genuine understanding in the system after all.”
vekker 7y ago
> Well, I'm wondering if consciousness is even a real state that can be defined precisely, or is it simply a made up construct so we humans can feel better about ourselves. Statements like this always baffle me. People who straight up deny that there is something like subjective experience. I mean, I guess it's possible that there are non-conscious humans with no notion of what experiencing existence is like ("p-zombies") and their internal logic systems then will logically argue against the existence of consciousness. There's obviously no way to "objectively prove" to one another that a human being or sufficiently complex AI is conscious, because that's the very definition of subjectiveness, but if only for moral and ethical reasons I think it's safer to assume all beings have a level of consciousness.
- PeterWhittaker 7y ago
  To my read and mind, there was no denial of that subjective experience, merely an attempt to frame a useful question around it. All of science is based upon shareable ideas, many testable. They may have begun as vague notions bouncing inchoate through our consciousness (or subconsciousness, etc., yada, so forth) but at some point they became expressible, then, eventually, measurable. If we want to study consciousness, whatever it/they is/are, then first we need to agree to useful operational definitions, things we can tease apart observationally, reason about, form hypotheses, then eventually theories. If one accepts that all human experience are fundamentally based on biology (since our meat seems to be all we have, at least until some extra-corporeal notion such as the soul is itself capable of being measured, analyzed, and reasoned about), then, fundamentally, our individual subjective experiences are based on what would likely be common chemistry and biology. So back to the original comment: Is consciousness a real state? We identify it as such, but perhaps it is several, perhaps many, cooperative or even competitive microstates, if you will, all of which together give us the experience of consciousness, but which are inaccessible to us... ...just as the perception of individual hues and saturations within our eyes are inaccessible, since they reach "us" after considerable backend processing (literally, since visual processing is largely occipital). If we are going to make progress on understanding consciousness, we first need to set it aside and ask "what is going on?" at various levels, then, eventually, draw a complete picture from those dots....
- 7y ago

everlastingfan 7y ago

Someone wil inevitably end up fucking the AI and proceed to base far-reaching conclusions about consciousness on that. As Adam knew Eve, wil we all "know" AI?

namelosw 7y ago

Exactly, in video games NPCs do panic when bad thing happens. However it's coded . And what they feel could also be coded according to the purpose of the simulation.

codeulike 7y ago

I wonder if in a few decades the use of AIs in computer games might start to become an ethical issue. As in, when the simulation of NPCs starts becoming _really_ good, won't it all begin to be a bit unsettling?

codeulike 7y ago

I think the Turing Test, done properly, would actually be a pretty good yardstick. People often forget how complex the conversation could be when talking about Turing Tests. Daniel Dennett gives an 'example' Turing Test in one of his books to emphasise the point: Judge: Did you hear about the Irishman who found a magic lamp? When he rubbed it a genie appeared and granted him three wishes. “I’ll have a pint of Guiness!” the Irishman replied and immediately it appeared. The Irishman eagerly set to sipping and then gulping, but the level of Guiness in the glass was always magically restored. After a while the genie became impatient. “Well, what about your second wish?” he asked. Replied the Irishman between gulps, “Oh well, I guess I’ll have another one of these.” CHINESE ROOM: Very funny. No, I hadn’t heard it– but you know I find ethnic jokes in bad taste. I laughed in spite of myself, but really, I think you should find other topics for us to discuss. J: Fair enough but I told you the joke because I want you to explain it to me. CR: Boring! You should never explain jokes. J: Nevertheless, this is my test question. Can you explain to me how and why the joke “works”? CR: If you insist. You see, it depends on the assumption that the magically refilling glass will go on refilling forever, so the Irishman has all the stout he can ever drink. So he hardly has a reason for wanting a duplicate but he is so stupid (that’s the part I object to) or so besotted by the alcohol that he doesn’t recognize this, and so, unthinkingly endorsing his delight with his first wish come true, he asks for seconds. These background assumptions aren’t true, of course, but just part of the ambient lore of joke-telling, in which we suspend our disbelief in magic and so forth. By the way we could imagine a somewhat labored continuation in which the Irishman turned out to be “right” in his second wish after all, perhaps he’s planning to throw a big party and one glass won’t refill fast enough to satisfy all his thirsty guests (and it’s no use saving it up in advance– we all know how stale stout loses its taste). We tend not to think of such complications which is part of the explanation of why jokes work. Is that enough? Dennett: “The fact is that any program that could actually hold up its end in the conversation depicted would have to be an extraordinary supple, sophisticated, and multilayered system, brimming with “world knowledge” and meta-knowledge and meta-meta-knowledge about its own responses, the likely responses of its interlocutor, and much, much more…. Maybe the billions of actions of all those highly structured parts produce genuine understanding in the system after all.”

vekker 7y ago

> Well, I'm wondering if consciousness is even a real state that can be defined precisely, or is it simply a made up construct so we humans can feel better about ourselves. Statements like this always baffle me. People who straight up deny that there is something like subjective experience. I mean, I guess it's possible that there are non-conscious humans with no notion of what experiencing existence is like ("p-zombies") and their internal logic systems then will logically argue against the existence of consciousness. There's obviously no way to "objectively prove" to one another that a human being or sufficiently complex AI is conscious, because that's the very definition of subjectiveness, but if only for moral and ethical reasons I think it's safer to assume all beings have a level of consciousness.

PeterWhittaker 7y ago
To my read and mind, there was no denial of that subjective experience, merely an attempt to frame a useful question around it. All of science is based upon shareable ideas, many testable. They may have begun as vague notions bouncing inchoate through our consciousness (or subconsciousness, etc., yada, so forth) but at some point they became expressible, then, eventually, measurable. If we want to study consciousness, whatever it/they is/are, then first we need to agree to useful operational definitions, things we can tease apart observationally, reason about, form hypotheses, then eventually theories. If one accepts that all human experience are fundamentally based on biology (since our meat seems to be all we have, at least until some extra-corporeal notion such as the soul is itself capable of being measured, analyzed, and reasoned about), then, fundamentally, our individual subjective experiences are based on what would likely be common chemistry and biology. So back to the original comment: Is consciousness a real state? We identify it as such, but perhaps it is several, perhaps many, cooperative or even competitive microstates, if you will, all of which together give us the experience of consciousness, but which are inaccessible to us... ...just as the perception of individual hues and saturations within our eyes are inaccessible, since they reach "us" after considerable backend processing (literally, since visual processing is largely occipital). If we are going to make progress on understanding consciousness, we first need to set it aside and ask "what is going on?" at various levels, then, eventually, draw a complete picture from those dots....
7y ago