6 ms·

"Sentience I guess I would call awareness of self or something along those lines." Is a self driving car aware of itself? Surely within its logic it represents

"Sentience I guess I would call awareness of self or something along those lines." Is a self driving car aware of itself? Surely within its logic it represents itself as a vehicle, while also being able to logically represent other vehicles on the road. Its logic accounts for there being similarities (they both obey the same laws of physics and such) and differences (its logic controls its own behavior but not that of other vehicles). So it has a meaningful and useful concept of "self". All of this is required for it to be able to function. What if some future iteration of a self driving car's vision system allows it to glean useful information from reflections, such as off of store windows? If it correctly can identify a reflection of itself as being itself... well then it has passed the mirror test. But that is a pretty silly thing to assign too much meaning to. I just don't see "awareness of self" as being meaningful. It doesn't narrow down the definition at all.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
I was a little sloppy in my formulation. A better way would be the ability to observe one's own thought processes and integrate them back into consciousness. Meta-cognition is a much better term, I think. It doesn't seem to me like cats for instance have this ability.
- JoshCole 4y ago
  You should check out the YouTube of the cat that was trained to use buttons to speak. It sometimes says things that are surprising which it wasn't trained to say directly - like complaining that its owners music is bad. I realize that this isn't contradicting your thesis of language models not being conscious - but I just generally think people should check out things like that cat. So I'm not trying to disagree with you here. I just think the cat is cool. I'm also a fan of ants. They have agriculture. They farm in their underground cities! They keep livestock too; insect livestock, but still! They give them medicines when they get sick, specially cultivated fungus for example. They are so cool.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    I already have, and I'm considering trying it out with my own cat at some point. Cats are way more intelligent than people give them credit for, I agree. But I think you can get very far without the ability to turn the mind's eye inward, and I don't think it's controversial to state that cats don't have a great deal of self-awareness and metacognitive ability. Neosocial insects like ants are amazing indeed. I often wonder what kind of "mind" an anthill has. Hurts just to think about it. And, to quote Oliver Sachs: "I'm not sure about octopuses..."
    - mongol 4y ago
      > And, to quote Oliver Sachs: "I'm not sure about octopuses..." I thought this quote was about the octopus that correctly predicted the outcome of games in a FIFA world cup. But seems it was something else?
      - DonHopkins 4y ago
        ...predicted? Or CAUSED??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu
        mongol 4y ago
        It was Paul the Octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
        Oliver said this during a roundtable discussion on metaphysics with Daniel Dennet, Steve Gould, Rupert Sheldrake, Freeman Dyson, and Stephen Toulmin from 1993. It's a fascinating discussion with a lot of my favourite mid-late 20th century thinkers. It's up on youtube, lookup any of the names involved with "roundtable discussion". It's over 3 hours long though. Anyway, Oliver was talking about what kind of mind he imagined various animals having. And that was most of what he had to say on octopuses. It's a bit of a sad watch too because all the participants except Dennet and Sheldrake are dead now.
- robbrown451 4y ago
  Ok, so you are saying a cat isn't sentient? And yet, most would agree that a cat can feel pain, but a machine can't. I think most people would object if the Google engineer said "I think this AI is every bit as sentient as a cat." They'd still say he's crazy. I also wonder what would happen if that particular AI actually had logic to "observe its own thought processes and integrate them back into consciousness". Would we then just spin on the semantics, such as by arguing that this isn't really "observing" and it certainly isn't "consciousness"? (how can you define words like "consciousness" without using words or concepts like "sentience", bringing us back to square one?) So I don't think meta-cognition is the answer either.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

I was a little sloppy in my formulation. A better way would be the ability to observe one's own thought processes and integrate them back into consciousness. Meta-cognition is a much better term, I think. It doesn't seem to me like cats for instance have this ability.

JoshCole 4y ago
You should check out the YouTube of the cat that was trained to use buttons to speak. It sometimes says things that are surprising which it wasn't trained to say directly - like complaining that its owners music is bad. I realize that this isn't contradicting your thesis of language models not being conscious - but I just generally think people should check out things like that cat. So I'm not trying to disagree with you here. I just think the cat is cool. I'm also a fan of ants. They have agriculture. They farm in their underground cities! They keep livestock too; insect livestock, but still! They give them medicines when they get sick, specially cultivated fungus for example. They are so cool.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  I already have, and I'm considering trying it out with my own cat at some point. Cats are way more intelligent than people give them credit for, I agree. But I think you can get very far without the ability to turn the mind's eye inward, and I don't think it's controversial to state that cats don't have a great deal of self-awareness and metacognitive ability. Neosocial insects like ants are amazing indeed. I often wonder what kind of "mind" an anthill has. Hurts just to think about it. And, to quote Oliver Sachs: "I'm not sure about octopuses..."
  - mongol 4y ago
    > And, to quote Oliver Sachs: "I'm not sure about octopuses..." I thought this quote was about the octopus that correctly predicted the outcome of games in a FIFA world cup. But seems it was something else?
    - DonHopkins 4y ago
      ...predicted? Or CAUSED??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu
      - mongol 4y ago
        It was Paul the Octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      Oliver said this during a roundtable discussion on metaphysics with Daniel Dennet, Steve Gould, Rupert Sheldrake, Freeman Dyson, and Stephen Toulmin from 1993. It's a fascinating discussion with a lot of my favourite mid-late 20th century thinkers. It's up on youtube, lookup any of the names involved with "roundtable discussion". It's over 3 hours long though. Anyway, Oliver was talking about what kind of mind he imagined various animals having. And that was most of what he had to say on octopuses. It's a bit of a sad watch too because all the participants except Dennet and Sheldrake are dead now.
robbrown451 4y ago
Ok, so you are saying a cat isn't sentient? And yet, most would agree that a cat can feel pain, but a machine can't. I think most people would object if the Google engineer said "I think this AI is every bit as sentient as a cat." They'd still say he's crazy. I also wonder what would happen if that particular AI actually had logic to "observe its own thought processes and integrate them back into consciousness". Would we then just spin on the semantics, such as by arguing that this isn't really "observing" and it certainly isn't "consciousness"? (how can you define words like "consciousness" without using words or concepts like "sentience", bringing us back to square one?) So I don't think meta-cognition is the answer either.