3 ms·

I would need some explanation of what consciousness is, for starters. Even better would be an explanation of how I might test whether any thing (including mysel

• andai 5y ago
  A perspective I thought was interesting is when Jordan Peterson says that the "proof" that people have a divine spark within them is "try treating them as if they don't, and see how well that works out for you!" In that sense it's quite similar to the idea of always assuming a person is acting in good faith: you cannot ever truly know someone's intentions, and even when everyone is communicating honestly and openly, communication is imperfect. But if you start to believe that someone has negative intentions towards you, your body language, tone, words and actions will reflect that assumption, and it will create harmful outcomes where they were not necessary at all. Similarly, we may never be able to objectively prove that a machine is conscious -- as you say, we cannot even prove it to another human about ourselves! But if we keep treating them with the assumption that they lack this "something special" that we have, and treat them unethically as a result, I think we could get ourselves into a lot of trouble. A similar conversation is to be had about the way humans are factory-farming animals, 80 billion of which are born and die every year in conditions worse than concentration camps (cages so small they can't move or even turn around, living in their own shit). If nothing else, what will this teach future superintelligent AIs about how to treat beings less intelligent than itself? About denying them all freedom and agency and exploiting them entirely for its own benefit (or arguably, enjoyment)?