3 ms·

So you define consciousness as something with an inner monologue? I define it as perception/imagination coloured by the estimation of future rewards.

seydor 4y ago
each of us can make a definition, and an AI could try to mimic most of them. at that point it would be convincingly 'conscious'
mirekrusin 4y ago
Consciousness is awareness of itself. Inner monologue is self referential. If you can simulate it you will not be able to distinguish real one from simulated one similar to how you can't distinguish native speaker's translation from machine translation using black box test. At this point - does it mean anything if something is "real" or "simulated"? If your only test is black box test where you can't distinguish black boxes anymore - your testing method is exhausted. Perception, imagination, future reward estimation can be inspected by dumping inner dialogue - it's a subset of things people are already looking at to evaluate overall performance in one shot examples. It's when those things gain inner loop ability where it gets interesting.
- braindead_in 4y ago
  > Consciousness is awareness of itself. Inner monologue is self referential. ChatGPT is definitely aware that it exists. In humans, the self-referential inner monologue activates when the mind is idle. The Default Mode Network is responsible for that processing. Can it be that ChatGPT is "thinking" when it's idle as well?
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    I think you're conflating self-awareness with self-...acknowledgement? Ie. python script foo.py that prints content of ./foo.py is not self aware. Self awareness needs notion of time and self referential memory. ChatGPT doesn't exist when it's idle. It's activated when transforming input into next potential token (list of tokens with probabilities). Ie. it's just sophisticated pure function mapping input -> list of tokens with probabilities. What's incredible is that it actually works when you keep repeating it. Notion of thinking time doesn't exist for it. It can for example branch in the middle. You can calculate one token in this data-center, next one on another continent etc.
hhjinks 4y ago
Perception/imagination does a lot of heavy lifting in that defintion. Without further specifying what you mean, some game AIs would fit that defintion.
- visarga 4y ago
  I think consciousness is when our sensations are related to our goals in order to act.
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    With that definition meditation would be something of an opposite. Consciousness is just self awareness. It requires time (where it evolves in), memory (where it stores itself), cognition (so it makes sense out of this stuff) and loop (access to it's recent memory where it's plotting itself in time). It doesn't require hands or legs, motor skills, sense of touch, eyes, ears, ability to speak or hear etc. - there are people without those and they are conscious. Act is an effect of consciousness, not consciousness itself.

seydor 4y ago

each of us can make a definition, and an AI could try to mimic most of them. at that point it would be convincingly 'conscious'

mirekrusin 4y ago

Consciousness is awareness of itself. Inner monologue is self referential. If you can simulate it you will not be able to distinguish real one from simulated one similar to how you can't distinguish native speaker's translation from machine translation using black box test. At this point - does it mean anything if something is "real" or "simulated"? If your only test is black box test where you can't distinguish black boxes anymore - your testing method is exhausted. Perception, imagination, future reward estimation can be inspected by dumping inner dialogue - it's a subset of things people are already looking at to evaluate overall performance in one shot examples. It's when those things gain inner loop ability where it gets interesting.

braindead_in 4y ago
> Consciousness is awareness of itself. Inner monologue is self referential. ChatGPT is definitely aware that it exists. In humans, the self-referential inner monologue activates when the mind is idle. The Default Mode Network is responsible for that processing. Can it be that ChatGPT is "thinking" when it's idle as well?
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  I think you're conflating self-awareness with self-...acknowledgement? Ie. python script foo.py that prints content of ./foo.py is not self aware. Self awareness needs notion of time and self referential memory. ChatGPT doesn't exist when it's idle. It's activated when transforming input into next potential token (list of tokens with probabilities). Ie. it's just sophisticated pure function mapping input -> list of tokens with probabilities. What's incredible is that it actually works when you keep repeating it. Notion of thinking time doesn't exist for it. It can for example branch in the middle. You can calculate one token in this data-center, next one on another continent etc.

hhjinks 4y ago

Perception/imagination does a lot of heavy lifting in that defintion. Without further specifying what you mean, some game AIs would fit that defintion.

visarga 4y ago
I think consciousness is when our sensations are related to our goals in order to act.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  With that definition meditation would be something of an opposite. Consciousness is just self awareness. It requires time (where it evolves in), memory (where it stores itself), cognition (so it makes sense out of this stuff) and loop (access to it's recent memory where it's plotting itself in time). It doesn't require hands or legs, motor skills, sense of touch, eyes, ears, ability to speak or hear etc. - there are people without those and they are conscious. Act is an effect of consciousness, not consciousness itself.