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I’ve always found that quote incredibly glib. The interesting question is whether or not a machine can have an internal experience, which we should then care ab

I’ve always found that quote incredibly glib. The interesting question is whether or not a machine can have an internal experience, which we should then care about on a moral level. Unless you deny the existence of experience, or adopt the exotic view that experience is universal and shared by rocks and electrons, that question is going to be pretty important as AI advances.

munificent 4y ago
What is your definition of an "internal experience"? The videogame Pong has an in-memory simulation of the playfield. Is it "experiencing" the game?
- TuringTest 4y ago
  Experience requires reflection. Does the in-memory simulation contains a model of the in-memory simulation? If not, we are certain that it does not have sentience as we understand it.
  - munificent 4y ago
    > Does the in-memory simulation contains a model of the in-memory simulation? Well, yes. I'm not sure about Pong specifically, but in many games with computer controlled entities, the game AI for each entity simulates what the entity "knows" about the world, which is different from the simulated world state itself. (Also, at least according to Wikipedia, sentience is distinct from self-awareness. The former only requires the existence of a subjective experience, not necessarily self-reflection.)
    - TuringTest 4y ago
      I also thought about AI in games, but for it to be equivalent, the AI should be able to have perception and/or control over the state of the AI itself, not merely about other game entities. E.g. some check like "stop reasoning if the inference process is taking too long to find an answer" is the kind of loop that would a process to have some kind of awareness about itself (specially if this was emergent behaviour, and not just a low-level pre-programmed test). I'm not sure I buy the "sentience without self-awareness" concept. First, defining it as "subjective experience" seems circular, and second, reflex actions like e.g. plants moving towards the light or reacting against a parasite would count as subjective experience; in the extreme, even a blind chemical reaction like fire could fall under that definition.
      - rad88 4y ago
        > I'm not sure I buy the "sentience without self-awareness" concept. Honest question -- what do you think is going on inside of babies and children? Self-awareness as a developmental process is complex and relational, and takes many years. Our senses though are more or less put together by puberty, built up by simple interactions with the world.
        TuringTest 4y ago
        Rational self-awareness, sure. But I believe higher animals and babies have self-awareness in that they are conscious of their own perceptions. It's difficult to put it in words without falling in circular definitions, but the key feature would be higher brain features working on top of the low-level automatic reflex information processing. Simpler animals like wasps and worms don't seem to have those, or have really simple versions; their behaviours look more like following hardwired programs reacting to specific conditions, not influenced by some inner "mind state".
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Are we sure that we have a mental simulation of ourselves that is even remotely accurate? And if it's not accurate, is it really self-reflection, or self-delusion?
    - TuringTest 4y ago
      Accurate with respect to what? :-P
      - int_19h 4y ago
        Like any other model - ability to correctly predict outputs after considering the inputs.
        TuringTest 4y ago
        In some sense, yes. By knowing yourself, you gain a fairly complete knowledge of one's own capabilities in various situations, and how one will feel in certain circumstances. On the other hand, it is not a knowledge of precision. You cannot predict exactly what thoughts you will have in the future or what ideas you will have before you have them.
- mistercow 4y ago
  I’m talking about qualia, and it’s notoriously difficult to discuss coherently, because these phenomena are completely internal, and can only be referenced by assuming that others have the same situation. Some people do claim that the concept is meaningless, that none of this exists, because it’s so hard to talk about. I think that’s a map-territory confusion. It seems clear to me that the fact that I have an internal experience is the only thing I have direct personal evidence of; everything I observe beyond that is in part an inference from the observed phenomena of qualia. I can’t prove them to anyone else, but other people talk as if they’re experiencing them too, so that’s at least something. The fact that this is so difficult to define and discuss is exactly the problem. To your question, what happens to my physical brain has a profound effect on my internal experience, and it seems that my ability to reason about my experiences is somehow integrated in the experiences themselves. So it seems very unlikely that a game of pong has any experience, or if it does, it seems likely that it’s so extremely poorly glued together that it might as well not be an experience. You could ask the same question about an insect. I find it really troubling that we have so little idea where this comes from, but I find it more troubling that people are so quick to dismiss it, simply because the subject is difficult to pin down.

munificent 4y ago

What is your definition of an "internal experience"? The videogame Pong has an in-memory simulation of the playfield. Is it "experiencing" the game?

TuringTest 4y ago
Experience requires reflection. Does the in-memory simulation contains a model of the in-memory simulation? If not, we are certain that it does not have sentience as we understand it.
- munificent 4y ago
  > Does the in-memory simulation contains a model of the in-memory simulation? Well, yes. I'm not sure about Pong specifically, but in many games with computer controlled entities, the game AI for each entity simulates what the entity "knows" about the world, which is different from the simulated world state itself. (Also, at least according to Wikipedia, sentience is distinct from self-awareness. The former only requires the existence of a subjective experience, not necessarily self-reflection.)
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    I also thought about AI in games, but for it to be equivalent, the AI should be able to have perception and/or control over the state of the AI itself, not merely about other game entities. E.g. some check like "stop reasoning if the inference process is taking too long to find an answer" is the kind of loop that would a process to have some kind of awareness about itself (specially if this was emergent behaviour, and not just a low-level pre-programmed test). I'm not sure I buy the "sentience without self-awareness" concept. First, defining it as "subjective experience" seems circular, and second, reflex actions like e.g. plants moving towards the light or reacting against a parasite would count as subjective experience; in the extreme, even a blind chemical reaction like fire could fall under that definition.
    - rad88 4y ago
      > I'm not sure I buy the "sentience without self-awareness" concept. Honest question -- what do you think is going on inside of babies and children? Self-awareness as a developmental process is complex and relational, and takes many years. Our senses though are more or less put together by puberty, built up by simple interactions with the world.
      - TuringTest 4y ago
        Rational self-awareness, sure. But I believe higher animals and babies have self-awareness in that they are conscious of their own perceptions. It's difficult to put it in words without falling in circular definitions, but the key feature would be higher brain features working on top of the low-level automatic reflex information processing. Simpler animals like wasps and worms don't seem to have those, or have really simple versions; their behaviours look more like following hardwired programs reacting to specific conditions, not influenced by some inner "mind state".
- int_19h 4y ago
  Are we sure that we have a mental simulation of ourselves that is even remotely accurate? And if it's not accurate, is it really self-reflection, or self-delusion?
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    Accurate with respect to what? :-P
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Like any other model - ability to correctly predict outputs after considering the inputs.
      - TuringTest 4y ago
        In some sense, yes. By knowing yourself, you gain a fairly complete knowledge of one's own capabilities in various situations, and how one will feel in certain circumstances. On the other hand, it is not a knowledge of precision. You cannot predict exactly what thoughts you will have in the future or what ideas you will have before you have them.
mistercow 4y ago
I’m talking about qualia, and it’s notoriously difficult to discuss coherently, because these phenomena are completely internal, and can only be referenced by assuming that others have the same situation. Some people do claim that the concept is meaningless, that none of this exists, because it’s so hard to talk about. I think that’s a map-territory confusion. It seems clear to me that the fact that I have an internal experience is the only thing I have direct personal evidence of; everything I observe beyond that is in part an inference from the observed phenomena of qualia. I can’t prove them to anyone else, but other people talk as if they’re experiencing them too, so that’s at least something. The fact that this is so difficult to define and discuss is exactly the problem. To your question, what happens to my physical brain has a profound effect on my internal experience, and it seems that my ability to reason about my experiences is somehow integrated in the experiences themselves. So it seems very unlikely that a game of pong has any experience, or if it does, it seems likely that it’s so extremely poorly glued together that it might as well not be an experience. You could ask the same question about an insect. I find it really troubling that we have so little idea where this comes from, but I find it more troubling that people are so quick to dismiss it, simply because the subject is difficult to pin down.