5 ms·

Take a piece of paper and write the words "I FEEL SAD" on that piece of paper. Now look at it. Do you believe that this piece of paper is feeling sad now? In t

Take a piece of paper and write the words "I FEEL SAD" on that piece of paper. Now look at it. Do you believe that this piece of paper is feeling sad now? In the same way an algorithm can never ever gain consciousness. Just because you manage to make the words on that "piece of paper" change quickly over time doesn't change anything.

me_me_me 6y ago
We cannot currently know if a computer is aware or its just sufficiently sophisticated to act like its aware. However if you claim that algorithm can never ever gain consciousness, that would mean we are not conscious either, and we have just an illusion of choice and decisions.
- auggierose 6y ago
  no, it would just mean that we are not an algorithm.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    that is very human centric view. Similar to earth being centre of universe. Unless you believe in some kind of magic mechanism that gives consciousness, we are nothing more than a wetware algorithm.
    - viklove 6y ago
      I've tried to have this type of conversation many times with many people over the past few years. I've found that not only are they resistive to this sort of take, but it frequently makes people angry if you try to take this position in the argument. And this is even with people who I can debate politics with for hours without it devolving into a shouting match. I'm not sure what it is about the idea that triggers this reaction, but it's always very exciting for me when I find other people who are having the same lines of thought on these matters as I am. We're just extremely complex machines, and IMO that means free-will is just an illusion. If we're deterministic machines, there is no free will.
      - random_upvoter 6y ago
        It's not because our brains thought up the concept of algorithm that reality must conform to the idea of an algorithm. The only scientific hint that we get on this mater we get from quantum mechanics which says that the universe isn't deterministic at all.
    - auggierose 6y ago
      Your view is actually very human centric. Just because an algorithm is all you know, doesn't mean the universe behaves like an algorithm, or consciousness, for that matter.
anotheryou 6y ago
On the other hand: - write some code that will divert all it's energy and capabilities away from whatever it is currently doing if it senses it might get deleted or turned off - bam: you got pain and agony I think emotions are quite primitive in its core and there is not a high bar to have them in their most simple forms.
- ilaksh 6y ago
  But we really, really don't want to give robots survival instincts.. Maybe pain in a very limited sense. There actually has been work on AGI emotions. Search "Want NARS emotional".
  - anotheryou 6y ago
    Didn't say we should. But any goal given is quite close to that as death would prevent the goal from being reached. Optimizing for something is even more common and even worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paper...
ajconway 6y ago
> In the same way an algorithm can never ever gain consciousness Not if consciousness turns out to be computable. In that case a brainfuck program could in theory produce conscious experience.
avereveard 6y ago
is a person sad, or is a person just lacking dopamine? if we can make person happy with chemicals (and it's pretty well established that we can) what's the difference between happiness from consciousness and happiness from chemicals? the location of the producing glands? so if we add "happiness" glands to the machine and train the machine to maximize it's production, is it conscious now?
nabla9 6y ago
Take a piece of meat (mostly water in a bag actually) an look how it writes the words "I FEEL SAD" on piece of paper. Now look at it. Do you believe that this piece of organic molecules is feeling sad now? In the same way an algorithm can never ever gain consciousness, organic molecules floating around in a sack can never be conscious.
- random_upvoter 6y ago
  An algorithm is a mathematical construct that exists in reality. But that does not mean that reality itself is an algorithm, or can be modeled/predicted by an algorithm. I strongly suspect that it cannot. Therefor it is possible that reality (or that little subset of reality called a human body) has properties like "consciousness" that an algorithm cannot do.
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Execution of an is physical process running on a physical computer. Electrical signals are used to do real physical actions. Human brain is also physical process that uses electrical and chemical signalling. What is the difference? https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...
- citrus1330 6y ago
  Maybe you not making the argument you think you are making? If organic molecules floating around in a sack can never be conscious then we must be more than organic molecules floating around in a sack, because it is a fact that we are conscious.
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Agreed. Is it reasonable to say silicon can't have that "more than" just like organic molecules. I can't see why computers can't have that magic as well.
arbitrage 6y ago
> Do you believe that this piece of paper is feeling sad now? sometimes, yeah. imagine a little kid getting bummed out because their notebook is sad. it happens, and this isn't as abstruse a counter-example as might be initially hoped.
cortic 6y ago
We are basically an algorithm. In fact we are an 'information' algorithm on top of an instance of a genetic algorithm. AI is the same, an 'information' algorithm on top of an instance of a hardware algorithm. The selection process that makes up the rules of the outer algorithm and start position of the inner can be said to be different but this is semantics. So if you are right and an algorithm can never ever gain 'consciousness' as we define it, then we are not conscious.
- devchix 6y ago
  Wait. If we are an algorithm, then it is repeatable, yes? Suppose we have something like a StarTrek food generator, but for us, brain, wetware, everything that occupies physical space, and then apply the algorithm. Are you sure that will duplicate yourself? Your memories, how you walk, your predilection to turn left, and reach for something yellow? (all made-up examples, of course). That a stroke can alter personalities and choices, or put memories out of reach, all in the same body, makes me think that there is something more than an algorithm that ties the whole together, I don't know if it's consciousness, but I lack a better word.
  - cortic 6y ago
    *My choices and everything i will do in my life is either Newtonian, and so was decided long before i was born. Or random and so not within my control. -The only issue we have with this statement is the definition of 'my' becomes difficult to pin down. So of-course, replicate my cells and their states and you replicate 'me', in every sense of the word. In fact since none of the atoms in my body were there 20 years ago i have replicated myself, a few times in my life. An algorithm with changing perimeters produces different results, a stroke just changes the parameters like any other event, the information in the brain is the result of the algorithm and the iterative basis of the algorithm moving forward in time.. that is what intelligence is, artificial or natural (which itself is semantics).

me_me_me 6y ago

We cannot currently know if a computer is aware or its just sufficiently sophisticated to act like its aware. However if you claim that algorithm can never ever gain consciousness, that would mean we are not conscious either, and we have just an illusion of choice and decisions.

auggierose 6y ago
no, it would just mean that we are not an algorithm.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  that is very human centric view. Similar to earth being centre of universe. Unless you believe in some kind of magic mechanism that gives consciousness, we are nothing more than a wetware algorithm.
  - viklove 6y ago
    I've tried to have this type of conversation many times with many people over the past few years. I've found that not only are they resistive to this sort of take, but it frequently makes people angry if you try to take this position in the argument. And this is even with people who I can debate politics with for hours without it devolving into a shouting match. I'm not sure what it is about the idea that triggers this reaction, but it's always very exciting for me when I find other people who are having the same lines of thought on these matters as I am. We're just extremely complex machines, and IMO that means free-will is just an illusion. If we're deterministic machines, there is no free will.
    - random_upvoter 6y ago
      It's not because our brains thought up the concept of algorithm that reality must conform to the idea of an algorithm. The only scientific hint that we get on this mater we get from quantum mechanics which says that the universe isn't deterministic at all.
  - auggierose 6y ago
    Your view is actually very human centric. Just because an algorithm is all you know, doesn't mean the universe behaves like an algorithm, or consciousness, for that matter.

anotheryou 6y ago

On the other hand: - write some code that will divert all it's energy and capabilities away from whatever it is currently doing if it senses it might get deleted or turned off - bam: you got pain and agony I think emotions are quite primitive in its core and there is not a high bar to have them in their most simple forms.

ilaksh 6y ago
But we really, really don't want to give robots survival instincts.. Maybe pain in a very limited sense. There actually has been work on AGI emotions. Search "Want NARS emotional".
- anotheryou 6y ago
  Didn't say we should. But any goal given is quite close to that as death would prevent the goal from being reached. Optimizing for something is even more common and even worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paper...

ajconway 6y ago

> In the same way an algorithm can never ever gain consciousness Not if consciousness turns out to be computable. In that case a brainfuck program could in theory produce conscious experience.

avereveard 6y ago

is a person sad, or is a person just lacking dopamine? if we can make person happy with chemicals (and it's pretty well established that we can) what's the difference between happiness from consciousness and happiness from chemicals? the location of the producing glands? so if we add "happiness" glands to the machine and train the machine to maximize it's production, is it conscious now?

nabla9 6y ago

Take a piece of meat (mostly water in a bag actually) an look how it writes the words "I FEEL SAD" on piece of paper. Now look at it. Do you believe that this piece of organic molecules is feeling sad now? In the same way an algorithm can never ever gain consciousness, organic molecules floating around in a sack can never be conscious.

random_upvoter 6y ago
An algorithm is a mathematical construct that exists in reality. But that does not mean that reality itself is an algorithm, or can be modeled/predicted by an algorithm. I strongly suspect that it cannot. Therefor it is possible that reality (or that little subset of reality called a human body) has properties like "consciousness" that an algorithm cannot do.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Execution of an is physical process running on a physical computer. Electrical signals are used to do real physical actions. Human brain is also physical process that uses electrical and chemical signalling. What is the difference? https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...
citrus1330 6y ago
Maybe you not making the argument you think you are making? If organic molecules floating around in a sack can never be conscious then we must be more than organic molecules floating around in a sack, because it is a fact that we are conscious.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Agreed. Is it reasonable to say silicon can't have that "more than" just like organic molecules. I can't see why computers can't have that magic as well.

arbitrage 6y ago

> Do you believe that this piece of paper is feeling sad now? sometimes, yeah. imagine a little kid getting bummed out because their notebook is sad. it happens, and this isn't as abstruse a counter-example as might be initially hoped.

cortic 6y ago

We are basically an algorithm. In fact we are an 'information' algorithm on top of an instance of a genetic algorithm. AI is the same, an 'information' algorithm on top of an instance of a hardware algorithm. The selection process that makes up the rules of the outer algorithm and start position of the inner can be said to be different but this is semantics. So if you are right and an algorithm can never ever gain 'consciousness' as we define it, then we are not conscious.

devchix 6y ago
Wait. If we are an algorithm, then it is repeatable, yes? Suppose we have something like a StarTrek food generator, but for us, brain, wetware, everything that occupies physical space, and then apply the algorithm. Are you sure that will duplicate yourself? Your memories, how you walk, your predilection to turn left, and reach for something yellow? (all made-up examples, of course). That a stroke can alter personalities and choices, or put memories out of reach, all in the same body, makes me think that there is something more than an algorithm that ties the whole together, I don't know if it's consciousness, but I lack a better word.
- cortic 6y ago
  *My choices and everything i will do in my life is either Newtonian, and so was decided long before i was born. Or random and so not within my control. -The only issue we have with this statement is the definition of 'my' becomes difficult to pin down. So of-course, replicate my cells and their states and you replicate 'me', in every sense of the word. In fact since none of the atoms in my body were there 20 years ago i have replicated myself, a few times in my life. An algorithm with changing perimeters produces different results, a stroke just changes the parameters like any other event, the information in the brain is the result of the algorithm and the iterative basis of the algorithm moving forward in time.. that is what intelligence is, artificial or natural (which itself is semantics).