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There are certainly a lot of people who have given much thought about AI and consciousness, but how can we talk about sentient machines when we clearly do not u

by zvmaz 3y ago

There are certainly a lot of people who have given much thought about AI and consciousness, but how can we talk about sentient machines when we clearly do not understand consciousness in us, human beings[1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
That's part of the reason to be wary about the possibility that our AI models may become conscious. Most people happily dismiss the idea that a GPT-like model can be conscious, but the truth is that we don't know practically anything about how consciousness arises in living beings that are more similar to us and that we have been coexisting with for thousands of years. We don't even know how to tell if such a being is conscious or not (most would agree that a dog is conscious and a bacterium is not, but what about a mouse? A mosquito? A tardigrade? Where is the limit?). It takes a lot of hubris to make claims about if and when AI models can become conscious, with what we know right now.
- kbrkbr 3y ago
  Your post touches two points worth to think about: The test for consciousness: if we do have zero criterion, how we are gonna find out if something is conscious? That is already a good indicator how much we do not know about the „mechanism” of consciousness. Point two is that we in fact know so little, that we cannot even nail a probability for some complex mechanism if is conscious. A car: probably not, too far away from things that are conscious. An ant? A microphone that listens to its output? A k-means run on some data? An llm? Some electricity in a biological neural network? If only we had a proven criterion to decide!
  - goatlover 3y ago
    Ned Block explores this difficulty in his The Harder Problem of Consciousness paper. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3655621 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3655621 He uses Commander Data from Star Trek as the example. Since we don't know whether it is something unique about our biology that leads to consciousness or consciousness is functional, then we can't determine whether Data is conscious. It also gets into the weeds about what sort of functional equivalence might or might not count. Data is obviously not the exact same functionally as we are, neither are LLMs. There are important differences. We know neurons don't use backpropagation, for example. So what is the basis for being conscious?
- zh3 3y ago
  I see it as more there are degrees of "consciousness" (whatever it is). Human consciousness varies in a single human over time (sleeping, tired, alert, drunk etc) and the range appears to vary (let alone across species, I'd grant dogs a possible overlap, having been outstarted by them more than once).
- arp242 3y ago
  The reason I'm skeptical that GPT-like models can ever reach consciousness is because they're centred around language, whereas consciousness isn't. While it's entirely possible to reach the same result with different methods, my intuition tells me that language-based models are just not going to cut it ever, which is admittedly very unscientific.
adameasterling 3y ago
I haven't heard of the idea of the "hard problem of consciousness" before, but after reading this Wikipedia article, it sounds like nonsense. Like, take this passage: > For example, it is logically possible for a perfect replica of [David] Chalmers to have no experience at all, or for it to have a different set of experiences (such as an inverted visible spectrum, so that the blue-yellow red-green axes of its visual field are flipped). A perfect replica? So you somehow make an exact copy of a person and his environment, down the last gluon, and play time forward, and you'd think that the two people might have different experiences? No way. In every other situation, if you set up a system in the exact same way, you'll get the same outcome. (Yes, randomness can come into play, but the distribution of outcomes will be the same.) I agree with this: > The philosopher Thomas Metzinger likens the hard problem of consciousness to vitalism, a formerly widespread view in biology which was not so much solved as abandoned. Brian Jonathan Garrett has also argued that the hard problem suffers from flaws analogous to those of vitalism.[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
- kajaktum 3y ago
  You are mistaking qualia and the experience of said qualia. Chalmers is asking why is there experience at all. I am not talking about memories, feelings, emotions or what have you. The question is why is there someone to observe those qualia in the first place?

by zvmaz 3y ago

Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago

That's part of the reason to be wary about the possibility that our AI models may become conscious. Most people happily dismiss the idea that a GPT-like model can be conscious, but the truth is that we don't know practically anything about how consciousness arises in living beings that are more similar to us and that we have been coexisting with for thousands of years. We don't even know how to tell if such a being is conscious or not (most would agree that a dog is conscious and a bacterium is not, but what about a mouse? A mosquito? A tardigrade? Where is the limit?). It takes a lot of hubris to make claims about if and when AI models can become conscious, with what we know right now.

kbrkbr 3y ago
Your post touches two points worth to think about: The test for consciousness: if we do have zero criterion, how we are gonna find out if something is conscious? That is already a good indicator how much we do not know about the „mechanism” of consciousness. Point two is that we in fact know so little, that we cannot even nail a probability for some complex mechanism if is conscious. A car: probably not, too far away from things that are conscious. An ant? A microphone that listens to its output? A k-means run on some data? An llm? Some electricity in a biological neural network? If only we had a proven criterion to decide!
- goatlover 3y ago
  Ned Block explores this difficulty in his The Harder Problem of Consciousness paper. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3655621 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3655621 He uses Commander Data from Star Trek as the example. Since we don't know whether it is something unique about our biology that leads to consciousness or consciousness is functional, then we can't determine whether Data is conscious. It also gets into the weeds about what sort of functional equivalence might or might not count. Data is obviously not the exact same functionally as we are, neither are LLMs. There are important differences. We know neurons don't use backpropagation, for example. So what is the basis for being conscious?
zh3 3y ago
I see it as more there are degrees of "consciousness" (whatever it is). Human consciousness varies in a single human over time (sleeping, tired, alert, drunk etc) and the range appears to vary (let alone across species, I'd grant dogs a possible overlap, having been outstarted by them more than once).
arp242 3y ago
The reason I'm skeptical that GPT-like models can ever reach consciousness is because they're centred around language, whereas consciousness isn't. While it's entirely possible to reach the same result with different methods, my intuition tells me that language-based models are just not going to cut it ever, which is admittedly very unscientific.

adameasterling 3y ago

I haven't heard of the idea of the "hard problem of consciousness" before, but after reading this Wikipedia article, it sounds like nonsense. Like, take this passage: > For example, it is logically possible for a perfect replica of [David] Chalmers to have no experience at all, or for it to have a different set of experiences (such as an inverted visible spectrum, so that the blue-yellow red-green axes of its visual field are flipped). A perfect replica? So you somehow make an exact copy of a person and his environment, down the last gluon, and play time forward, and you'd think that the two people might have different experiences? No way. In every other situation, if you set up a system in the exact same way, you'll get the same outcome. (Yes, randomness can come into play, but the distribution of outcomes will be the same.) I agree with this: > The philosopher Thomas Metzinger likens the hard problem of consciousness to vitalism, a formerly widespread view in biology which was not so much solved as abandoned. Brian Jonathan Garrett has also argued that the hard problem suffers from flaws analogous to those of vitalism.[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism

kajaktum 3y ago
You are mistaking qualia and the experience of said qualia. Chalmers is asking why is there experience at all. I am not talking about memories, feelings, emotions or what have you. The question is why is there someone to observe those qualia in the first place?