6 ms·

It also does not matter much. The word “consciousness” only matters for philosophers. For everyone else, the only questions are: - can this object do the same

by theamk 5y ago

It also does not matter much. The word “consciousness” only matters for philosophers. For everyone else, the only questions are: - can this object do the same things that humans do? - doss this object has legal/household ethical protections that living things have (is it considered “human” and has all the human rights? If not, is it considered “animal” and protected against cruelty?) The first question is for AI researchers and maybe neuroscientists. The second question is for lawyers and journalists; and sociologists/psychologists may help to design systems so they appear more or less alive. None of those care about what exactly “consciousness” is and if the box of silicon has it.

jqpabc123 5y ago
So in other words, it doesn't matter that you can't turn lead into gold as long as the end result is something shiny enough to fool a lot of people?
- theamk 5y ago
  It does not ned to “fool a lot of people”, it needs to convince scientists. And yes, if there is a process which turns lead into yellow material, and that yellow material behaves as, and composed of the same particles as gold (according to physicsts), and reacts same as gold (according to chemists), and looks like gold (according to jewelers and artists) then this yellow material is gold.. even if philosophers say “this is not a gold!”
  - jqpabc123 5y ago
    And yes, if there is a process ... If magic was real, all sorts of wonderous things would be possible. But it's not real and we know of no real, practical chemical process that can turn lead into an equivalent for gold. Likewise, we know of no real, practical binary logic algorithmic process that can create an equivalent of consciousness. And just like with alchemy, we have no real reason to believe it is practically achievable.
    - JabavuAdams 5y ago
      Yes. Yes. Yes. Assumption.
    - Isinlor 5y ago
      There are physical processes that can change lead into gold. The real deal gold. Also, there is no reason to believe anything about consciousness. For example, you are not conscious and in my opinion equivalent to a machine. Prove me wrong.
      - vimacs2 5y ago
        You mean via nuclear transumation? That's not chemical nor particularly practical in a pre-fusion powered economy The problem with your third assertion is even if we accept that there is no way to prove the consciousness of others, you need to categorical deny your own and thus borders on absurdity and outright denial.
        Isinlor 5y ago
        Indeed, it's not chemical, but it is possible nevertheless. Practicality is besides the point. Well, my world view is that everything is conscious, including oxygen I just inhaled and that went to my brain, sugars I ate, bacteria in my gut, my blood, my dead blood cells, as well as my skin, sweat vapor, nails, hairs, teeth, cloths, electrostatic charge on my cloths etc. Dark matter, if it exists, may be the least conscious thing we know about. I would call that consciousness a state of existing and interacting. It is a fundamental property, and can be explained only as much as color charge of a quark. For some people that's not consciousness. So, if what I described above is not consciousness, then whatever it is that you mean by consciousness, IMO does not exists. There is also self-recognition, the red dot in the mirror etc. which is just a behavioral pattern, side effect of intelligence.
        vimacs2 5y ago
        While I don't necessarily buy the panpsychism you're outlining, I appreciate the fact that you actually make the distinction between experience of qualia (the hard problem) and self-awareness, which we arguably already are capable of both modelling and implementing successfully. I always found it dubious that people privilege self awareness so greatly in discussions of consciousness considering the fact that many beings that most recognise as at least sentient such as dogs and other higher mammals often lack it, and arguably many humans too (and I'm not just talking about those before the age of 4 either).
- volta83 5y ago
  Precisely, in the exact same way that you can fool people that "paper" has the same value as "gold".
fighterpilot 5y ago
Strong disagree. It might be the only thing that does actually matter. Rocks, present-day computers and other unconscious objects have no moral value because they're incapable of suffering and experiences. An AGI that's unconscious has no moral value either. It is just a tool, no different in concept and moral worth to my screwdriver.
- Isinlor 5y ago
  Explain then, what should the difference between you and your screwdriver be to me? Why should I believe you on a word that you are conscious and not believe a smart algorithm?
  - bumby 5y ago
    I'm a bit out of my lane here so maybe somebody can jump in with a better understanding. >what should the difference between you and your screwdriver be to me? If we can't define consciousness, I can't prove to you that I'm not effectively an unconscious zombie. We create social contracts based, in part, on empathy. I.e., I can estimate what it "feels like" to be you and therefore extend certain rights to you as a recognition of that subjective conscious experience. If you were simply an unconscious moist robut, there's nothing immoral about me subjugating you, or stomping on your foot, or anything else that relies on rights or subjective suffering. So I'll assert the question back to you: since you can't prove I'm conscious, what prevents you from flippantly treating me just as you would a screwdriver?
    - theamk 5y ago
      Probably because most people don't care about consciousness and treat people like people if they can relate to them? You said it yourself -- "we create social contracts based, in part, on empathy". As long as empathy works, we should be treating others nice. Trying to replace simple and understandable things like "empathy" with vague "consciousness" leads to dangerous roads. One moment you are talking philosophy and next moment you are declaring beings you don't like as "unconscious zombie" and you are enslaving and subjugating them.
gfodor 5y ago
If we understood consciousness it would likely lead to technologies and other improvements to existence that transcend anything we can imagine, so yes, it certainly does matter. Understanding consciousness could lead to things such as: - Eternal cognition - Mind portablilty - Intelligence augmentation - Forward time travel (eg via hibernation) - Full reality simulation Among countless other things we cannot presently describe. You're missing the elephant in the room: you are a conscious agent. The question of determining if an AI is conscious via external observations is an smaller problem compared to being able to apply levers of technical know-how to your own existence and state of being.
- theamk 5y ago
  That's what you say, but I don't see how philosophers and their consciousness ideas can help with those. If you want "mind portability" (I assume you mean "upload brain to the machine" here) you want to talk neurobiologists, people who actually study the brains. Probably also to computer scientists so you know how to build a machine to simulate that. If you want "Intelligence augmentation" -- I am going to argue this already happens with internet and search engines. Next steps would come from same directions. And it is certainly not going to be philosophers designing direct brain-machine interface! - Hibernation is fully biology -- what does conscious have to do with that? and so on... I am 100% sure that whoever solves those very important problems will need to build solid theories and make lots of real-world, non-thought experiments -- something that modern philosophers which study consciousness simply do not do.
  - bumby 5y ago
    This feels like a wholly technocratic approach. It's like debating that philosophers have no relevance in genetic engineering, the only people that matter in that domain are geneticists, doctors, etc. But that completely ignores the discussion as to whether or not its moral/immoral/wise/unwise to wield such technology. I would argue the latter gets more and more relevant as humanity tries to emerge from it's technological adolescence.
    - 5y ago
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
The second question is decided by rebels. Lawyers only document the result.

by theamk 5y ago

jqpabc123 5y ago

So in other words, it doesn't matter that you can't turn lead into gold as long as the end result is something shiny enough to fool a lot of people?

theamk 5y ago
It does not ned to “fool a lot of people”, it needs to convince scientists. And yes, if there is a process which turns lead into yellow material, and that yellow material behaves as, and composed of the same particles as gold (according to physicsts), and reacts same as gold (according to chemists), and looks like gold (according to jewelers and artists) then this yellow material is gold.. even if philosophers say “this is not a gold!”
- jqpabc123 5y ago
  And yes, if there is a process ... If magic was real, all sorts of wonderous things would be possible. But it's not real and we know of no real, practical chemical process that can turn lead into an equivalent for gold. Likewise, we know of no real, practical binary logic algorithmic process that can create an equivalent of consciousness. And just like with alchemy, we have no real reason to believe it is practically achievable.
  - JabavuAdams 5y ago
    Yes. Yes. Yes. Assumption.
  - Isinlor 5y ago
    There are physical processes that can change lead into gold. The real deal gold. Also, there is no reason to believe anything about consciousness. For example, you are not conscious and in my opinion equivalent to a machine. Prove me wrong.
    - vimacs2 5y ago
      You mean via nuclear transumation? That's not chemical nor particularly practical in a pre-fusion powered economy The problem with your third assertion is even if we accept that there is no way to prove the consciousness of others, you need to categorical deny your own and thus borders on absurdity and outright denial.
      - Isinlor 5y ago
        Indeed, it's not chemical, but it is possible nevertheless. Practicality is besides the point. Well, my world view is that everything is conscious, including oxygen I just inhaled and that went to my brain, sugars I ate, bacteria in my gut, my blood, my dead blood cells, as well as my skin, sweat vapor, nails, hairs, teeth, cloths, electrostatic charge on my cloths etc. Dark matter, if it exists, may be the least conscious thing we know about. I would call that consciousness a state of existing and interacting. It is a fundamental property, and can be explained only as much as color charge of a quark. For some people that's not consciousness. So, if what I described above is not consciousness, then whatever it is that you mean by consciousness, IMO does not exists. There is also self-recognition, the red dot in the mirror etc. which is just a behavioral pattern, side effect of intelligence.
        vimacs2 5y ago
        While I don't necessarily buy the panpsychism you're outlining, I appreciate the fact that you actually make the distinction between experience of qualia (the hard problem) and self-awareness, which we arguably already are capable of both modelling and implementing successfully. I always found it dubious that people privilege self awareness so greatly in discussions of consciousness considering the fact that many beings that most recognise as at least sentient such as dogs and other higher mammals often lack it, and arguably many humans too (and I'm not just talking about those before the age of 4 either).
volta83 5y ago
Precisely, in the exact same way that you can fool people that "paper" has the same value as "gold".

fighterpilot 5y ago

Strong disagree. It might be the only thing that does actually matter. Rocks, present-day computers and other unconscious objects have no moral value because they're incapable of suffering and experiences. An AGI that's unconscious has no moral value either. It is just a tool, no different in concept and moral worth to my screwdriver.

Isinlor 5y ago
Explain then, what should the difference between you and your screwdriver be to me? Why should I believe you on a word that you are conscious and not believe a smart algorithm?
- bumby 5y ago
  I'm a bit out of my lane here so maybe somebody can jump in with a better understanding. >what should the difference between you and your screwdriver be to me? If we can't define consciousness, I can't prove to you that I'm not effectively an unconscious zombie. We create social contracts based, in part, on empathy. I.e., I can estimate what it "feels like" to be you and therefore extend certain rights to you as a recognition of that subjective conscious experience. If you were simply an unconscious moist robut, there's nothing immoral about me subjugating you, or stomping on your foot, or anything else that relies on rights or subjective suffering. So I'll assert the question back to you: since you can't prove I'm conscious, what prevents you from flippantly treating me just as you would a screwdriver?
  - theamk 5y ago
    Probably because most people don't care about consciousness and treat people like people if they can relate to them? You said it yourself -- "we create social contracts based, in part, on empathy". As long as empathy works, we should be treating others nice. Trying to replace simple and understandable things like "empathy" with vague "consciousness" leads to dangerous roads. One moment you are talking philosophy and next moment you are declaring beings you don't like as "unconscious zombie" and you are enslaving and subjugating them.

gfodor 5y ago

If we understood consciousness it would likely lead to technologies and other improvements to existence that transcend anything we can imagine, so yes, it certainly does matter. Understanding consciousness could lead to things such as: - Eternal cognition - Mind portablilty - Intelligence augmentation - Forward time travel (eg via hibernation) - Full reality simulation Among countless other things we cannot presently describe. You're missing the elephant in the room: you are a conscious agent. The question of determining if an AI is conscious via external observations is an smaller problem compared to being able to apply levers of technical know-how to your own existence and state of being.

theamk 5y ago
That's what you say, but I don't see how philosophers and their consciousness ideas can help with those. If you want "mind portability" (I assume you mean "upload brain to the machine" here) you want to talk neurobiologists, people who actually study the brains. Probably also to computer scientists so you know how to build a machine to simulate that. If you want "Intelligence augmentation" -- I am going to argue this already happens with internet and search engines. Next steps would come from same directions. And it is certainly not going to be philosophers designing direct brain-machine interface! - Hibernation is fully biology -- what does conscious have to do with that? and so on... I am 100% sure that whoever solves those very important problems will need to build solid theories and make lots of real-world, non-thought experiments -- something that modern philosophers which study consciousness simply do not do.
- bumby 5y ago
  This feels like a wholly technocratic approach. It's like debating that philosophers have no relevance in genetic engineering, the only people that matter in that domain are geneticists, doctors, etc. But that completely ignores the discussion as to whether or not its moral/immoral/wise/unwise to wield such technology. I would argue the latter gets more and more relevant as humanity tries to emerge from it's technological adolescence.
  - 5y ago

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

The second question is decided by rebels. Lawyers only document the result.