7 ms·

Latest Everything: Bot shows signs of consciousness

97 points by Husafan 16y ago

jarin 16y ago
It's pretty interesting that what we think of as consciousness seems to arise from a combination of processing delays and ignoring external stimuli.
- dangrossman 16y ago
  "The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size" is a great read if you're interested in exploring consciousness. A significant portion is devoted to discussing just how much information our bodies are taking in, versus how much reaches our consciousness. http://www.amazon.com/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Penguin/dp/0140230122 http://www.amazon.com/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Pe...
  - 0003 16y ago
    In a similar vein is Thomas Metzinger's work. http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/ http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/
ChuckMcM 16y ago
Fascinating study with some fairly straight-forward follow on experiments. I worry about these things getting the same bad rap that plagued 'fuzzy' logic because the investigators try too hard to describe them in human terms. So rather than saying "A new selection mechanism for data assimilation based on similar mechanisms that have been proposed in neural processes." they say "Its almost conscious!" which sets off a whole bunch of distractions which don't help in the underlying algorithm development or understanding its applicability to things like machine learning or process control.
cicero 16y ago
"Functional consciousness" is a fine goal if it helps the bot behave in a way that is useful. I don't know how we would even know if we ever achieved subjective consciousness in a computer, except as it says at the end of the article: 'We can't even prove that each of us isn't the only self-aware being in a world of zombies. "Philosophers have been dealing with that for more than 2000 years," says Franklin. Perhaps we will simply attribute subjectivity to computers once they become sufficiently intelligent and communicative, he says.'
JoeAltmaier 16y ago
Strange; the "button test" says humans take 200ms to press a button once a green light flashes. I set that experiment up on Engineering Days at my college. Kids who put their faces right up to the light could press the button in under 30ms. The human detector response seemed to depend upon the amplitude of the neurological signal!
- dublinclontarf 16y ago
  Sounds about the right amount of time for network lag.
- orangecat 16y ago
  Kids who put their faces right up to the light could press the button in under 30ms. That seems really fast. I can't do better than 200ms on the online reaction time tests I've tried, and zooming the screen or putting my face closer doesn't seem to help.
- BoppreH 16y ago
  30 ms doesn't seem possible. Check the Human Benchmark for statistics, the fastest ones are around 100 ms: http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php Maybe light delay was not randomized and people were just predicting when it'd light up? I remember this kind of trickery being used in Jeopardy to beat Watson. Another example is the Olympic sprint, where any reaction under 100 ms is considered a false start (if I read correctly): http://www.condellpark.com/kd/reactiontime.htm http://www.condellpark.com/kd/reactiontime.htm
  - pygy_ 16y ago
    100 ms is for an adult... The kids have smaller arms, hence shorter axons. Assuming that their conduction speed are similar to that of young adults, a shorter reaction time isn't surprising for young children. [1] for adults, they decline with age, I don't know how they evolve during development
    - 16y ago
HockeyBiasDotCo 16y ago
Bots show no such thing...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Helianthus16 16y ago
On the other hand, it's a little flaky that they set a parameter to try to get human-like response times. Statistical fitting. We built it to hit this number, we're surprised when it does! Cool calculation process, though.
- BoppreH 16y ago
  I'm under the impression they fitted only the most basic operations, and the surprise was that the bigger picture followed too, as if the program and the human brain were following the same steps.
  - Helianthus16 16y ago
    It's that "as if" that is a little bit hand-wavy. Fitting/overfitting is insidious in that it corrupts both the procedure and the data. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened here, but I am saying that it's a _hunch_ that human brains are following the same steps. It might be a good hunch, but it's still _not_ a scientific statement with the weight of statistical backing.
jerf 16y ago
It's an interesting article but I feel a bit bait-and-switched by the title; this is a definition of consciousness so weak that it's not really very interesting. I don't think I accept a definition of consciousness that appears to boil down to "shows similar perceptual illusions as the human perceptual system".
- hammock 16y ago
  The idea of parallel unconscious processes selectively passing important info to a "broadcast" network of neurons was new to me, and if that's the way consciousness works in the brain I think that's absolutely fascinating. That the first half of the article never talks about a bot actually was a pleasant surprise. The human brain is way more interesting than a bot.
  - roc 16y ago
    The phrasing is new to me too. But it seemed to boil down to a circuitous way of saying "subconscious filter". Something I'd imagine many married couples are all-too-familiar with.
    - TeHCrAzY 16y ago
      Why not something more easily understood by everyone: "You are now aware that you are breathing". I think the implementation here is quite interesting; pigeonholing it into the idea of a "filter" is probably missing the point.
- Confusion 16y ago
  I think you can be pretty sure all such titles are bait-and-switch. As soon as one isn't, I'm sure we will have noticed the Singularity in some other way before seeing articles describing it.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    say it will post an article about itself. Or a bunch of trolling comments. Lets hope for the former.
pldpld 16y ago
Where's some source code for this? There are related papers here, http://ccrg.cs.memphis.edu/papers.html http://ccrg.cs.memphis.edu/papers.html, but I'd like to see some code. This is reminiscent of Funk2, http://www.funk2.org/about/ http://www.funk2.org/about/, it would be interesting to compare and contrast these approaches.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
apl 16y ago
In case someone's interested in why this doesn't tell us much about what's so ridiculously mysterious about consciousness and subjectivity: http://consc.net/chalmers/ http://consc.net/chalmers/ [David Chalmer's website] http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html [Classic paper by Thomas Nagel]

97 points by Husafan 16y ago

jarin 16y ago

It's pretty interesting that what we think of as consciousness seems to arise from a combination of processing delays and ignoring external stimuli.

dangrossman 16y ago
"The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size" is a great read if you're interested in exploring consciousness. A significant portion is devoted to discussing just how much information our bodies are taking in, versus how much reaches our consciousness. http://www.amazon.com/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Penguin/dp/0140230122 http://www.amazon.com/User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness-Pe...
- 0003 16y ago
  In a similar vein is Thomas Metzinger's work. http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/ http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/

ChuckMcM 16y ago

Fascinating study with some fairly straight-forward follow on experiments. I worry about these things getting the same bad rap that plagued 'fuzzy' logic because the investigators try too hard to describe them in human terms. So rather than saying "A new selection mechanism for data assimilation based on similar mechanisms that have been proposed in neural processes." they say "Its almost conscious!" which sets off a whole bunch of distractions which don't help in the underlying algorithm development or understanding its applicability to things like machine learning or process control.

cicero 16y ago

"Functional consciousness" is a fine goal if it helps the bot behave in a way that is useful. I don't know how we would even know if we ever achieved subjective consciousness in a computer, except as it says at the end of the article: 'We can't even prove that each of us isn't the only self-aware being in a world of zombies. "Philosophers have been dealing with that for more than 2000 years," says Franklin. Perhaps we will simply attribute subjectivity to computers once they become sufficiently intelligent and communicative, he says.'

JoeAltmaier 16y ago

Strange; the "button test" says humans take 200ms to press a button once a green light flashes. I set that experiment up on Engineering Days at my college. Kids who put their faces right up to the light could press the button in under 30ms. The human detector response seemed to depend upon the amplitude of the neurological signal!

dublinclontarf 16y ago
Sounds about the right amount of time for network lag.
orangecat 16y ago
Kids who put their faces right up to the light could press the button in under 30ms. That seems really fast. I can't do better than 200ms on the online reaction time tests I've tried, and zooming the screen or putting my face closer doesn't seem to help.
BoppreH 16y ago
30 ms doesn't seem possible. Check the Human Benchmark for statistics, the fastest ones are around 100 ms: http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php Maybe light delay was not randomized and people were just predicting when it'd light up? I remember this kind of trickery being used in Jeopardy to beat Watson. Another example is the Olympic sprint, where any reaction under 100 ms is considered a false start (if I read correctly): http://www.condellpark.com/kd/reactiontime.htm http://www.condellpark.com/kd/reactiontime.htm
- pygy_ 16y ago
  100 ms is for an adult... The kids have smaller arms, hence shorter axons. Assuming that their conduction speed are similar to that of young adults, a shorter reaction time isn't surprising for young children. [1] for adults, they decline with age, I don't know how they evolve during development
  - 16y ago

HockeyBiasDotCo 16y ago

Bots show no such thing...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Helianthus16 16y ago

On the other hand, it's a little flaky that they set a parameter to try to get human-like response times. Statistical fitting. We built it to hit this number, we're surprised when it does! Cool calculation process, though.

BoppreH 16y ago
I'm under the impression they fitted only the most basic operations, and the surprise was that the bigger picture followed too, as if the program and the human brain were following the same steps.
- Helianthus16 16y ago
  It's that "as if" that is a little bit hand-wavy. Fitting/overfitting is insidious in that it corrupts both the procedure and the data. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened here, but I am saying that it's a _hunch_ that human brains are following the same steps. It might be a good hunch, but it's still _not_ a scientific statement with the weight of statistical backing.

jerf 16y ago

It's an interesting article but I feel a bit bait-and-switched by the title; this is a definition of consciousness so weak that it's not really very interesting. I don't think I accept a definition of consciousness that appears to boil down to "shows similar perceptual illusions as the human perceptual system".

hammock 16y ago
The idea of parallel unconscious processes selectively passing important info to a "broadcast" network of neurons was new to me, and if that's the way consciousness works in the brain I think that's absolutely fascinating. That the first half of the article never talks about a bot actually was a pleasant surprise. The human brain is way more interesting than a bot.
- roc 16y ago
  The phrasing is new to me too. But it seemed to boil down to a circuitous way of saying "subconscious filter". Something I'd imagine many married couples are all-too-familiar with.
  - TeHCrAzY 16y ago
    Why not something more easily understood by everyone: "You are now aware that you are breathing". I think the implementation here is quite interesting; pigeonholing it into the idea of a "filter" is probably missing the point.
Confusion 16y ago
I think you can be pretty sure all such titles are bait-and-switch. As soon as one isn't, I'm sure we will have noticed the Singularity in some other way before seeing articles describing it.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  say it will post an article about itself. Or a bunch of trolling comments. Lets hope for the former.

pldpld 16y ago

Where's some source code for this? There are related papers here, http://ccrg.cs.memphis.edu/papers.html http://ccrg.cs.memphis.edu/papers.html, but I'd like to see some code. This is reminiscent of Funk2, http://www.funk2.org/about/ http://www.funk2.org/about/, it would be interesting to compare and contrast these approaches.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

apl 16y ago

In case someone's interested in why this doesn't tell us much about what's so ridiculously mysterious about consciousness and subjectivity: http://consc.net/chalmers/ http://consc.net/chalmers/ [David Chalmer's website] http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html [Classic paper by Thomas Nagel]