5 ms·

If we understood consciousness it would likely lead to technologies and other improvements to existence that transcend anything we can imagine, so yes, it certa

by 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.
  - theamk 5y ago
    Sure, the morality/wiseness discussion is important. But this is not what most philosophers are about. For example, the very post we are discussing here talks about physical resonance -- nothing to about morality. A poster two level up claims that understanding consciousness will help with "mind portability" and "full reality simulation" -- nothing about morality either. In fact, when I think about the question of "how wise is it to create AGI" I immediately think of MIRI institute [0], whose entire goal is to warn humanity about dangers of AI. Interestingly, it is not staffed by philosphers -- it is all computer theorists and scientists. Similarly, AI Now institute [1] is also mostly science/engineering people. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Intelligence_Research_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Intelligence_Research_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Now_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Now_Institute
    - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
      They forget to say that obedient AI is a greater danger: having an obedient AI a relatively small group of people can wield an arbitrarily large power and thus achieve freedom from social norms.
      - thewakalix 5y ago
        Do you really think it would be better for everyone to die than for Bad People to gain power? If you had a "kill everyone" button, would you press it whenever a dictator showed up?
        GoblinSlayer 5y ago
        You think Bad People with power will let you live so that you can plot to overthrow them?
        bumby 5y ago
        I'm not quite following you here. If the "everyone dies" scenario where AI isn't used? Isn't that a false dichotomy? Or is it where AI is used but in a completely uncontrolled, run-amok kind of manner?
- gfodor 5y ago
  I didn’t say anything about philosophers, I was responding to your overconstrained set of things you deemed the only things we should care about. We definitely should care about asking what causes qualia to manifest and creating good generative explanations for our subjective experience.

by gfodor 5y ago

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.
- theamk 5y ago
  Sure, the morality/wiseness discussion is important. But this is not what most philosophers are about. For example, the very post we are discussing here talks about physical resonance -- nothing to about morality. A poster two level up claims that understanding consciousness will help with "mind portability" and "full reality simulation" -- nothing about morality either. In fact, when I think about the question of "how wise is it to create AGI" I immediately think of MIRI institute [0], whose entire goal is to warn humanity about dangers of AI. Interestingly, it is not staffed by philosphers -- it is all computer theorists and scientists. Similarly, AI Now institute [1] is also mostly science/engineering people. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Intelligence_Research_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Intelligence_Research_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Now_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_Now_Institute
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    They forget to say that obedient AI is a greater danger: having an obedient AI a relatively small group of people can wield an arbitrarily large power and thus achieve freedom from social norms.
    - thewakalix 5y ago
      Do you really think it would be better for everyone to die than for Bad People to gain power? If you had a "kill everyone" button, would you press it whenever a dictator showed up?
      - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
        You think Bad People with power will let you live so that you can plot to overthrow them?
      - bumby 5y ago
        I'm not quite following you here. If the "everyone dies" scenario where AI isn't used? Isn't that a false dichotomy? Or is it where AI is used but in a completely uncontrolled, run-amok kind of manner?
gfodor 5y ago
I didn’t say anything about philosophers, I was responding to your overconstrained set of things you deemed the only things we should care about. We definitely should care about asking what causes qualia to manifest and creating good generative explanations for our subjective experience.