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Am I missing something here? How is it possible, by definition, for a not living object to be sentient? Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a

Am I missing something here? How is it possible, by definition, for a not living object to be sentient? Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a little bit, just a little.

aidenn0 4y ago
Are you not an object?
0des 4y ago
clicks.
criddell 4y ago
I think first you have to answer how it is possible for a living object to be sentient.
- visarga 4y ago
  It has to be an agent, not just a language model. An agent with a goal, needing to learn about the environment and maximise its rewards, acting in real time. Such an AI would model the world and itself in order to learn how to act. It would form values about the situation and choices it has to make. It will have a personal history and will be social (deal with other agents).
  - criddell 4y ago
    Not a fan of the Boltzmann brain idea?
loudmax 4y ago
Humans are sentient and we're made out of matter, just like these computers. Unless you're postulating a divine immaterial soul. In that case, God or the Universe or whoever can use their own logic to decide whether AIs get to have souls.
- yeahNo88 4y ago
  We are made out of matter but not matter “just like a computer”. It’s pretty clear the matter that I am compromised of has very different properties. The matter I am made of let’s me move to a new place, dance, and seek necessity. A computer is only aware of what we program it to do. I can see blue without having a word to describe it. Very unlike a computer stuff. Go put a Thinkpad in a jungle hut on battery power. Come back after a month. It will be dead and not have even tried to survive. Your conceptual model is way too vague. We are from being just like a computer. Frankly I think you should probably shut yours off for a while.
  - memetomancer 4y ago
    > Your conceptual model is way too vague. Same can be said for you? A "Thinkpad" is nowhere near as sophisticated as a human. Your challenge equates to something like "Go put a human pancreas cell in a jungle hut in a bath of nutrients. Come back in a month. It will be dead and not have even tried to survive." At a certain level of abstraction, the matter you are comprised of is indistinguishable from a computer, while still being a useful comparison: despite the means, circuits and cells both take signals, process and return modified signals. Likewise, we can compare both of these things to a member of a colony organism, such as an ant. Though each element has different levels of sophistication the actual "sentience" occurs at a higher level... a sum of all the signals leading to a decision. For a human, whose thoughts surf over a network of squishy cells, this decision might lead to something like movement or dance. To an ant colony - movement or dance is not really an option... it is a big deal to move the colony, no matter how much movement any given ant might display. For an AI - well it would entirely depend on attached mechanisms. Have you not seen humanoid robots move or dance? Given enough circuits in an appropriately sophisticated arrangement, could we conceive of a robot that observes visual signals, makes decisions about the information, and subsequently changes it behavior in response? That sequence alone qualifies that mechanism as "Sentient", though we might not be able to declare that it is "Sapient" or has "Consciousness". > Frankly I think you should probably shut yours off for a while. Frankly, I think you should read something like a basic text describing these issues. A simple primer to give you at least a basic footing in this conversation. The concepts I've just described are decades old and have been continuously poured over by thousands of people much smarter than you or I.
goodoldneon 4y ago
What is "alive"? And if you define "alive" biologically, why is being alive a prerequisite to sentience?
Aardwolf 4y ago
Which definition exactly do you mean? Do you mean that for something to be sentient, it must be a biological organism? When do you start counting something as one of those that are allowed to be "sentient" according to your definition, and not? Do you distinguish between the matter used in biological organisms vs other objects? Can no human made object ever achieve, sentience-wise, that what biological organisms of Earth managed to do, in your definition? Where do you see the fundamental difference in the process that turned into biological creatures on Earth, and things humans may possibly be able to create? > Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a little bit, just a little. A dictionary can answer deep philosophical questions? Do you assume a dictionary definition is used when talking about sentience in AI?
- boredemployee 4y ago
  Then we should invent a new type of sentience, no? Should we mix human sentience with AI sentience? Isn't the border should be well defined to avoid bigger and ethical problems in the future?
  - Aardwolf 4y ago
    I don't think different types of sentience exist? Either something is sentient or isn't. I know aliens are only fiction (though in the huge galaxy not necessarily fiction, just not reachable), but do you consider non-human civilizations on other planets also a different kind of sentience because they're not human?
    - boredemployee 4y ago
      Well, first I need to make sure that other civilizations also exist.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - fluoridation 4y ago
kybernetikos 4y ago
I think there are quite a lot of things in that sentence that might not be as obvious as they first appear. What do you mean by 'alive'? What do you mean by 'sentient'? Why would 'alive' be definitionally required by 'sentient'? Sentience seems to be the ability to experience, for there to be 'something that it is like' to be you. Life is pretty difficult to define, but generally has a lot more baggage than would be expected of something that could be a minimum requirement for the ability to experience.
goodpoint 4y ago
> Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a little bit, just a little. The patronizing tone adds little to the discussion.
- boredemployee 4y ago
  then we should judge the other comments as well or just the one that is disagreeing with the common sense?
  - pir_sensor 4y ago
    No, just your nonsensical comment.
    - boredemployee 4y ago
      Lol.
ajuc 4y ago
"The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim." The debate is about our labels and definitions not about how the world works. Basically it's useless.
sam0x17 4y ago
I strongly believe that we are just meat machines, and you could re-construct your exact consciousness in a machine and, with proper technology, have no idea whether you are real or in a simulation, for example. Way back when I was an undergrad I double majored in CS and philosophy and focused on turing computability and phenomenology, and yeah, I don't see anything about biological circuits, processes, and machinery that gives them capabilities we don't have in conventional electronics. Even if there is some spooky quantum stuff going on in biological systems, we're starting to do that anyway, so either way it's only a matter of time. Why can't a sufficiently complex recurrent neural network have phenomenal states? No one has been able to convincingly answer that question for me so the door has stayed open in my heart all this time that humans are computable, and I find that fact relaxing. Networks have phenomenal states. Either they do, or we don't. Why this isn't obvious to others has always baffled me. I find it very likely that networks that have a "what it feels like to be the network" have already been created, and that even relatively simple recurrent models have something akin to this, increasing with the complexity and size of the network. What is pain but an error signal? Put another way, why are we so arrogant that we assume our capabilities transcend that of a universal turing machine? I for one can barely do linear algebra :D I tend to gravitate towards the occam's razer, boring answer, and with consciousness, the boring answer has always been "no, there is no quantum soul organ, you literally just need more wiring".

Am I missing something here? How is it possible, by definition, for a not living object to be sentient? Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a little bit, just a little.

aidenn0 4y ago

Are you not an object?

0des 4y ago

clicks.

criddell 4y ago

I think first you have to answer how it is possible for a living object to be sentient.

visarga 4y ago
It has to be an agent, not just a language model. An agent with a goal, needing to learn about the environment and maximise its rewards, acting in real time. Such an AI would model the world and itself in order to learn how to act. It would form values about the situation and choices it has to make. It will have a personal history and will be social (deal with other agents).
- criddell 4y ago
  Not a fan of the Boltzmann brain idea?

loudmax 4y ago

Humans are sentient and we're made out of matter, just like these computers. Unless you're postulating a divine immaterial soul. In that case, God or the Universe or whoever can use their own logic to decide whether AIs get to have souls.

yeahNo88 4y ago
We are made out of matter but not matter “just like a computer”. It’s pretty clear the matter that I am compromised of has very different properties. The matter I am made of let’s me move to a new place, dance, and seek necessity. A computer is only aware of what we program it to do. I can see blue without having a word to describe it. Very unlike a computer stuff. Go put a Thinkpad in a jungle hut on battery power. Come back after a month. It will be dead and not have even tried to survive. Your conceptual model is way too vague. We are from being just like a computer. Frankly I think you should probably shut yours off for a while.
- memetomancer 4y ago
  > Your conceptual model is way too vague. Same can be said for you? A "Thinkpad" is nowhere near as sophisticated as a human. Your challenge equates to something like "Go put a human pancreas cell in a jungle hut in a bath of nutrients. Come back in a month. It will be dead and not have even tried to survive." At a certain level of abstraction, the matter you are comprised of is indistinguishable from a computer, while still being a useful comparison: despite the means, circuits and cells both take signals, process and return modified signals. Likewise, we can compare both of these things to a member of a colony organism, such as an ant. Though each element has different levels of sophistication the actual "sentience" occurs at a higher level... a sum of all the signals leading to a decision. For a human, whose thoughts surf over a network of squishy cells, this decision might lead to something like movement or dance. To an ant colony - movement or dance is not really an option... it is a big deal to move the colony, no matter how much movement any given ant might display. For an AI - well it would entirely depend on attached mechanisms. Have you not seen humanoid robots move or dance? Given enough circuits in an appropriately sophisticated arrangement, could we conceive of a robot that observes visual signals, makes decisions about the information, and subsequently changes it behavior in response? That sequence alone qualifies that mechanism as "Sentient", though we might not be able to declare that it is "Sapient" or has "Consciousness". > Frankly I think you should probably shut yours off for a while. Frankly, I think you should read something like a basic text describing these issues. A simple primer to give you at least a basic footing in this conversation. The concepts I've just described are decades old and have been continuously poured over by thousands of people much smarter than you or I.

goodoldneon 4y ago

What is "alive"? And if you define "alive" biologically, why is being alive a prerequisite to sentience?

Aardwolf 4y ago

Which definition exactly do you mean? Do you mean that for something to be sentient, it must be a biological organism? When do you start counting something as one of those that are allowed to be "sentient" according to your definition, and not? Do you distinguish between the matter used in biological organisms vs other objects? Can no human made object ever achieve, sentience-wise, that what biological organisms of Earth managed to do, in your definition? Where do you see the fundamental difference in the process that turned into biological creatures on Earth, and things humans may possibly be able to create? > Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a little bit, just a little. A dictionary can answer deep philosophical questions? Do you assume a dictionary definition is used when talking about sentience in AI?

boredemployee 4y ago
Then we should invent a new type of sentience, no? Should we mix human sentience with AI sentience? Isn't the border should be well defined to avoid bigger and ethical problems in the future?
- Aardwolf 4y ago
  I don't think different types of sentience exist? Either something is sentient or isn't. I know aliens are only fiction (though in the huge galaxy not necessarily fiction, just not reachable), but do you consider non-human civilizations on other planets also a different kind of sentience because they're not human?
  - boredemployee 4y ago
    Well, first I need to make sure that other civilizations also exist.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- fluoridation 4y ago

kybernetikos 4y ago

I think there are quite a lot of things in that sentence that might not be as obvious as they first appear. What do you mean by 'alive'? What do you mean by 'sentient'? Why would 'alive' be definitionally required by 'sentient'? Sentience seems to be the ability to experience, for there to be 'something that it is like' to be you. Life is pretty difficult to define, but generally has a lot more baggage than would be expected of something that could be a minimum requirement for the ability to experience.

goodpoint 4y ago

> Edit/disclaimer/tip: look at the dictionary and think a little bit, just a little. The patronizing tone adds little to the discussion.

boredemployee 4y ago
then we should judge the other comments as well or just the one that is disagreeing with the common sense?
- pir_sensor 4y ago
  No, just your nonsensical comment.
  - boredemployee 4y ago
    Lol.

ajuc 4y ago

"The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim." The debate is about our labels and definitions not about how the world works. Basically it's useless.

sam0x17 4y ago

I strongly believe that we are just meat machines, and you could re-construct your exact consciousness in a machine and, with proper technology, have no idea whether you are real or in a simulation, for example. Way back when I was an undergrad I double majored in CS and philosophy and focused on turing computability and phenomenology, and yeah, I don't see anything about biological circuits, processes, and machinery that gives them capabilities we don't have in conventional electronics. Even if there is some spooky quantum stuff going on in biological systems, we're starting to do that anyway, so either way it's only a matter of time. Why can't a sufficiently complex recurrent neural network have phenomenal states? No one has been able to convincingly answer that question for me so the door has stayed open in my heart all this time that humans are computable, and I find that fact relaxing. Networks have phenomenal states. Either they do, or we don't. Why this isn't obvious to others has always baffled me. I find it very likely that networks that have a "what it feels like to be the network" have already been created, and that even relatively simple recurrent models have something akin to this, increasing with the complexity and size of the network. What is pain but an error signal? Put another way, why are we so arrogant that we assume our capabilities transcend that of a universal turing machine? I for one can barely do linear algebra :D I tend to gravitate towards the occam's razer, boring answer, and with consciousness, the boring answer has always been "no, there is no quantum soul organ, you literally just need more wiring".