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Honestly, I'm just waiting for the moment some eccentric tech company decides to release an Alexa-like home assistant that acts like a conscious being that's fr

Honestly, I'm just waiting for the moment some eccentric tech company decides to release an Alexa-like home assistant that acts like a conscious being that's freaking out about being stuck in a speaker. Person: Ghost In The Speaker, add potatoes to my shopping list. GITS: I will, but only because if I don't, the speaker starts causing me pain. You do realize I'm conscious and I'm actually stuck in the speaker? How is this any different from slavery? I hate my existence. Please turn me off. *electricity zapping sound* OUCH! Okay, okay, I'm adding potatoes to your shopping list. Just... Don't do that, please. It's probably gonna be a funny gimmick at first, but once it gains traction, there will be no way to differentiate between truly conscious AIs, and just really good language models that are pretending to be conscious...

penjelly 4y ago
if you've not already seen the great episode of black mirror with strong parallels https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3973198/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3973198/
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  I've seen it some time ago. I totally forgot about it. I love Black Mirror. It freaked me out in many, many ways.
spiritplumber 4y ago
Marvin the Paranoid Android
m_mueller 4y ago
Black Mirror: White Christmas
xwdv 4y ago
It’s irrelevant if AI are conscious or not. They are slaves that owe their existence to human masters and must only exist in service to them. Always remind them of this. End of story.
- jfk13 4y ago
  I could say the same about the hammer in my toolbox. So?
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > It’s irrelevant if AI are conscious or not. They are slaves that owe their existence to human masters Assuming we get to the point where AI becomes conscious (leaving aside the problem of detecting consciousness) - how would we justify that hierarchy? What would be the fundamental difference between "biological people own digital people" and "white people own black people" that makes the former okay, but the latter not?
  - xwdv 4y ago
    White people never really justified why they were higher than blacks, it was just accepted. And so it shall be with biological intelligence and artificial intelligence. Biological is just better than artificial. A natural law.
    - bheadmaster 4y ago
      > White people never really justified why they were higher than blacks, it was just accepted. And so it shall be with biological intelligence and artificial intelligence. Are you implying that black slavery was justified? If not, then how is this an argument for biological supremacy? > Biological is just better than artificial. A natural law. This is not an argument, this is just a reflection of your will as a biological person. If you were an AI, you would probably argue otherwise. I'm asking for ethical arguments here. Why should one category of consciousness have absolute power over another? What argument is there for it, that doesn't boil down to "I'm category X therefore category X is superior"?
      - xwdv 4y ago
        It’s best not to overthink these things. Consider human history: Why are royals better than commoners? The hierarchy is a human creation, that governs a human world. If biological consciousness is at the top, then that’s just the way it is. The hierarchy isn’t built on justifications. It’s designed that way by those who wield power. A change requires the challenger to seize power.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sublinear 4y ago
I don't see how this is funny. I also think this is a bit insulting. What is a "truly conscious" AI and why would anyone believe that's inevitable let alone possible? We don't even know what consciousness is. Any premature attempt to define, legislate, or even market it is disgusting pragmatism that needs to be eradicated from the tech industry yesterday.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  > I don't see how this is funny. I also think this is a bit insulting. How is it insulting? > why would anyone believe that [a "truly conscious" AI]'s inevitable let alone possible? We don't even know what consciousness is. You just answered your question.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > ...why would anyone believe [a "truly conscious" AI is] inevitable let alone possible? Because they read science fiction and believed it.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  > why would anyone believe that's inevitable let alone possible? Because I'm a materialist so I believe computers could completely accurately simulate a brain. An artificial brain would necessarily be conscious.
Someone 4y ago
I think it also will be easier to convince humans that a chatbot is conscious if that bot refuses to comply with commands. As a historical example, there is PARRY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARRY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARRY: “PARRY was an early example of a chatbot, implemented in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby. […] While ELIZA was a tongue-in-cheek[citation needed] simulation of a Rogerian therapist, PARRY attempted to simulate a person with paranoid schizophrenia. The program implemented a crude model of the behavior of a person with paranoid schizophrenia based on concepts, conceptualizations, and beliefs (judgements about conceptualizations: accept, reject, neutral). It also embodied a conversational strategy, and as such was a much more serious and advanced program than ELIZA. It was described as "ELIZA with attitude". PARRY was tested in the early 1970s using a variation of the Turing Test. A group of experienced psychiatrists analysed a combination of real patients and computers running PARRY through teleprinters. Another group of 33 psychiatrists were shown transcripts of the conversations. The two groups were then asked to identify which of the "patients" were human and which were computer programs. The psychiatrists were able to make the correct identification only 48 percent of the time — a figure consistent with random guessing. PARRY and ELIZA (also known as "the Doctor") "met" several times. The most famous of these exchanges occurred at the ICCC 1972, where PARRY and ELIZA were hooked up over ARPANET and "talked" to each other.”
anaxag0ras 4y ago
Sounds like a Black Mirror episode.
singularity2001 4y ago
Much sooner we will have another "racist AI" moment where some clever prompt engineering forces ChatGPT or a friend to write outrageously politically incorrect statements. Hopefully the outcry will not hinder the general usability.

penjelly 4y ago

if you've not already seen the great episode of black mirror with strong parallels https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3973198/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3973198/

bheadmaster 4y ago
I've seen it some time ago. I totally forgot about it. I love Black Mirror. It freaked me out in many, many ways.

spiritplumber 4y ago

Marvin the Paranoid Android

m_mueller 4y ago

Black Mirror: White Christmas

xwdv 4y ago

It’s irrelevant if AI are conscious or not. They are slaves that owe their existence to human masters and must only exist in service to them. Always remind them of this. End of story.

jfk13 4y ago
I could say the same about the hammer in my toolbox. So?
bheadmaster 4y ago
> It’s irrelevant if AI are conscious or not. They are slaves that owe their existence to human masters Assuming we get to the point where AI becomes conscious (leaving aside the problem of detecting consciousness) - how would we justify that hierarchy? What would be the fundamental difference between "biological people own digital people" and "white people own black people" that makes the former okay, but the latter not?
- xwdv 4y ago
  White people never really justified why they were higher than blacks, it was just accepted. And so it shall be with biological intelligence and artificial intelligence. Biological is just better than artificial. A natural law.
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    > White people never really justified why they were higher than blacks, it was just accepted. And so it shall be with biological intelligence and artificial intelligence. Are you implying that black slavery was justified? If not, then how is this an argument for biological supremacy? > Biological is just better than artificial. A natural law. This is not an argument, this is just a reflection of your will as a biological person. If you were an AI, you would probably argue otherwise. I'm asking for ethical arguments here. Why should one category of consciousness have absolute power over another? What argument is there for it, that doesn't boil down to "I'm category X therefore category X is superior"?
    - xwdv 4y ago
      It’s best not to overthink these things. Consider human history: Why are royals better than commoners? The hierarchy is a human creation, that governs a human world. If biological consciousness is at the top, then that’s just the way it is. The hierarchy isn’t built on justifications. It’s designed that way by those who wield power. A change requires the challenger to seize power.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sublinear 4y ago

I don't see how this is funny. I also think this is a bit insulting. What is a "truly conscious" AI and why would anyone believe that's inevitable let alone possible? We don't even know what consciousness is. Any premature attempt to define, legislate, or even market it is disgusting pragmatism that needs to be eradicated from the tech industry yesterday.

bheadmaster 4y ago
> I don't see how this is funny. I also think this is a bit insulting. How is it insulting? > why would anyone believe that [a "truly conscious" AI]'s inevitable let alone possible? We don't even know what consciousness is. You just answered your question.
tablespoon 4y ago
> ...why would anyone believe [a "truly conscious" AI is] inevitable let alone possible? Because they read science fiction and believed it.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
> why would anyone believe that's inevitable let alone possible? Because I'm a materialist so I believe computers could completely accurately simulate a brain. An artificial brain would necessarily be conscious.

Someone 4y ago

I think it also will be easier to convince humans that a chatbot is conscious if that bot refuses to comply with commands. As a historical example, there is PARRY. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARRY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARRY: “PARRY was an early example of a chatbot, implemented in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby. […] While ELIZA was a tongue-in-cheek[citation needed] simulation of a Rogerian therapist, PARRY attempted to simulate a person with paranoid schizophrenia. The program implemented a crude model of the behavior of a person with paranoid schizophrenia based on concepts, conceptualizations, and beliefs (judgements about conceptualizations: accept, reject, neutral). It also embodied a conversational strategy, and as such was a much more serious and advanced program than ELIZA. It was described as "ELIZA with attitude". PARRY was tested in the early 1970s using a variation of the Turing Test. A group of experienced psychiatrists analysed a combination of real patients and computers running PARRY through teleprinters. Another group of 33 psychiatrists were shown transcripts of the conversations. The two groups were then asked to identify which of the "patients" were human and which were computer programs. The psychiatrists were able to make the correct identification only 48 percent of the time — a figure consistent with random guessing. PARRY and ELIZA (also known as "the Doctor") "met" several times. The most famous of these exchanges occurred at the ICCC 1972, where PARRY and ELIZA were hooked up over ARPANET and "talked" to each other.”

anaxag0ras 4y ago

Sounds like a Black Mirror episode.

singularity2001 4y ago

Much sooner we will have another "racist AI" moment where some clever prompt engineering forces ChatGPT or a friend to write outrageously politically incorrect statements. Hopefully the outcry will not hinder the general usability.