4 ms·

Degenerated into waffle. There’s no reason to believe that humans are more than some chemistry running on squishy meat. It seems like it would be physically pos

by foxes 4y ago

Degenerated into waffle. There’s no reason to believe that humans are more than some chemistry running on squishy meat. It seems like it would be physically possible to emulate that with silicon and software. There’s are no concrete definitions of sentience, thinking, so I guess you can shift the goal post whenever you want.

kareemsabri 4y ago
I gave a definition - having a subjective experience aka self-awareness.
- slooonz 4y ago
  Can you prove you to us have one ?
  - kareemsabri 4y ago
    No, but that's irrelevant to the question at hand.
- foxes 4y ago
  What is that? Acting on an internal state? Aware you have an internal state and can adjust it internally? Why cant some code do that?
  - kareemsabri 4y ago
    You seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm not saying it is prohibited by the laws of the universe for a computer to have sentience. I'm saying there is no good reason to believe that our current computers, no matter how many instructions per second they are able to execute or how sophisticated the programs they run are, are sentient. Saying "why can't a computer do x" is not an argument that a computer does currently do x. But no, consciousness is not just "acting on an internal state". A toaster acts on an internal state. It is a complex phenomenon in which an internal state, and the environment interact to create an internal state and a subjective experience of that state which is felt by the organism. This will go down a rabbit hole, and I don't want to engage in a discussion about what consciousness and feelings are, but there is not reason to believe that computers have feelings. And the output of computer language models is not good evidence that they have feelings, particularly those which are trained on the language models of creatures which have feelings (humans). If they were trained on the language of birds, we wouldn't say there's evidence they are afraid of dogs, even if they were to engage in loud chirping when presented with a dog.

by foxes 4y ago

kareemsabri 4y ago

I gave a definition - having a subjective experience aka self-awareness.

slooonz 4y ago
Can you prove you to us have one ?
- kareemsabri 4y ago
  No, but that's irrelevant to the question at hand.
foxes 4y ago
What is that? Acting on an internal state? Aware you have an internal state and can adjust it internally? Why cant some code do that?
- kareemsabri 4y ago
  You seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm not saying it is prohibited by the laws of the universe for a computer to have sentience. I'm saying there is no good reason to believe that our current computers, no matter how many instructions per second they are able to execute or how sophisticated the programs they run are, are sentient. Saying "why can't a computer do x" is not an argument that a computer does currently do x. But no, consciousness is not just "acting on an internal state". A toaster acts on an internal state. It is a complex phenomenon in which an internal state, and the environment interact to create an internal state and a subjective experience of that state which is felt by the organism. This will go down a rabbit hole, and I don't want to engage in a discussion about what consciousness and feelings are, but there is not reason to believe that computers have feelings. And the output of computer language models is not good evidence that they have feelings, particularly those which are trained on the language models of creatures which have feelings (humans). If they were trained on the language of birds, we wouldn't say there's evidence they are afraid of dogs, even if they were to engage in loud chirping when presented with a dog.