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Although i fundamentally agree with you, i will say that it is impossible to know which "tricks" will lead to a leap in cognition, even looking evolutionarily,

Although i fundamentally agree with you, i will say that it is impossible to know which "tricks" will lead to a leap in cognition, even looking evolutionarily, the difference in genome between a monkey and human is very small percentage wise, yet the effects of that small difference are stark.

unshavedyak 3y ago
I'm always on the position that at some point (i make no prediction of when) "AI" will still be labeled as not-intelligent, but to external observers it won't be possible to know. Ie we will be able to describe how a function of `add(1,2)` is most clearly definitely not intelligent. We will understand the internal makeup of these neurons better, the whole system will be deterministic and understood - just a very large `add(1,2)` .. so it's definitely not intelligent, of course. Yet it will still produce output that is fully and truly turing-proof. If you let it run, it retains, stores, "behaves", etc. It's clearly just `add(1,2)` in a loop after all.. we will understand it so well that it's obviously just a trick of our mind that it seems real. The conclusion in that space will not be one of the machine .. but of us. If we can't tell it apart from us.. and if we know it is most definitely not alive or even mysterious.. what does that say about us? The existential crisis will be neat.
- c_crank 3y ago
  >If we can't tell it apart from us.. and if we know it is most definitely not alive or even mysterious.. what does that say about us? Less than people think. We know that being a biological system differentiates us. If intelligent systems tend to converge where language is concerned, so be it. It doesn't mean the AI warrants any special consideration. It's still a tool.
  - mercurialsolo 3y ago
    While life is typically associated with biological systems, intelligence doesn't necessarily need proof of life. A hive, swarm or network can be intelligent as long as it shows self-awareness and has agency.
    - c_crank 3y ago
      I'm not disputing that. I just think that intelligence or 'sapience' is not something that requires reverence on our part.
      - TeMPOraL 3y ago
        What is then, if anything? Definitely not "being a biological system" - that seems much more boring than intelligence, and the line between "biological" and "non-biological" is somewhat arbitrary and increasingly blurry anyway.
        c_crank 3y ago
        It is a quality that makes something good at drawing pictures and writing smart sound replies to prompts. And translating.
        jacobr1 3y ago
        I'm increasingly thinking the game-theoretic emergent properties of social interaction as described in papers like https://desirism.com/morality-from-the-ground-up https://desirism.com/morality-from-the-ground-up provides a good basis for thinking about this. The distinguishing factor then becomes something like, the agent is is participant in the moral-sphere by having "enough" properties to do so. It still leaves the details of that gradient a bit undefined, but at least specifies the basis upon which to make a judgment.
- tshaddox 3y ago
  > If we can't tell it apart from us.. and if we know it is most definitely not alive or even mysterious.. what does that say about us? That concepts like "consciousness," "free will," and "qualia" are nebulous precisely because they were invented by us to describe things we don't understand yet we feel obligated to insist are special and unique characteristics of our identity.
  - TaupeRanger 3y ago
    They aren't nebulous. "Consciousness" means "an existing stream of experiences". "Free will" means "a feeling that one could've made a different choice" (the metaphysical status of the claim still unknown), and "qualia" means "specific characteristics of experiences that one can attend to". One need not "insist" on anything to believe they are unique characteristics of our identity.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      None of your definitions are less nebulous than the terms you defined.
      - TaupeRanger 3y ago
        Yes they are - they are AS non-nebulous as you can possibly get - totally black and white obvious. "Is there a stream of experiences?" is very straightforward, black and white. It's what you have when you're awake, and what you lose when you're in dreamless sleep. Not nebulous in any way. "Can you pay attention to this part of your experience?" is a very black-and-white, non-nebulous question with an easy yes or no answer. Not sure what you're reading into this.
        jacobr1 3y ago
        No, it is unclear because this definition insufficiently distinguishes a cluster of related, and ill-defined concepts. Consider a video camera. It seems like it is a consuming a "stream of experiences". But most people wouldn't consider it it conscious. Why not under your definition? It works when on, and is stops when turned off. Black and white. But clearly we are missing some nuance in the details. Maybe we also require some interpretation of the experiences? I can spin a convolutional neural net that identify objects within a video: interpretation. Does that make it conscious? No? Then we need something else to define it. Maybe response to stimuli? We can program machines for that, but then also things like fire respond to environment interactions too. And so on. It really isn't black and white after all.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Eh, that's not super concerning to me. It falls into the same pitfall as "chemical reactions aren't conscious, our brains are just lots of chemical reactions". Namely, it's the mereological fallacy: a denial of emergent properties. A single water molecule is not a liquid, a gas, or a solid. The property "phase of matter" simply does not exist until you have at least a handful of molecules.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Oh, i agree. If anything i'm apathetic to us being unique at all. However i'm speaking in the general cultural perception sense. I think a lot of humanity depends.. or at least has built a self-image around uniqueness as a foundation to our believed superiority. We often discuss things that would challenge or overtake us. Hypothetical advanced aliens, artificial AI, etc. However i don't often see pop culture discussing the opposite - us, or even life, being challenged on it's uniqueness. Plus then that leads to all sorts of self-autonomy discussions (which is discussed in pop culture imo). I dunno, i suspect "people" won't handle it well. Hell, there's entire religion(s) built on the foundation that we're uniquely gifted as a product of being crafted in a gods image. To question us could question god. I find these questions neat, interesting, etc - but socially i suspect it would be troubling, contentious, frightening.
    - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
      We've dealt with this problem before: Historically all humans being "people" is a relatively new concept in of itself. I'm sure there's going to be growing pains there, but I think we'd figure out how to cope. Hopefully relatively quickly compared to that example.

unshavedyak 3y ago

I'm always on the position that at some point (i make no prediction of when) "AI" will still be labeled as not-intelligent, but to external observers it won't be possible to know. Ie we will be able to describe how a function of `add(1,2)` is most clearly definitely not intelligent. We will understand the internal makeup of these neurons better, the whole system will be deterministic and understood - just a very large `add(1,2)` .. so it's definitely not intelligent, of course. Yet it will still produce output that is fully and truly turing-proof. If you let it run, it retains, stores, "behaves", etc. It's clearly just `add(1,2)` in a loop after all.. we will understand it so well that it's obviously just a trick of our mind that it seems real. The conclusion in that space will not be one of the machine .. but of us. If we can't tell it apart from us.. and if we know it is most definitely not alive or even mysterious.. what does that say about us? The existential crisis will be neat.

c_crank 3y ago
>If we can't tell it apart from us.. and if we know it is most definitely not alive or even mysterious.. what does that say about us? Less than people think. We know that being a biological system differentiates us. If intelligent systems tend to converge where language is concerned, so be it. It doesn't mean the AI warrants any special consideration. It's still a tool.
- mercurialsolo 3y ago
  While life is typically associated with biological systems, intelligence doesn't necessarily need proof of life. A hive, swarm or network can be intelligent as long as it shows self-awareness and has agency.
  - c_crank 3y ago
    I'm not disputing that. I just think that intelligence or 'sapience' is not something that requires reverence on our part.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      What is then, if anything? Definitely not "being a biological system" - that seems much more boring than intelligence, and the line between "biological" and "non-biological" is somewhat arbitrary and increasingly blurry anyway.
      - c_crank 3y ago
        It is a quality that makes something good at drawing pictures and writing smart sound replies to prompts. And translating.
      - jacobr1 3y ago
        I'm increasingly thinking the game-theoretic emergent properties of social interaction as described in papers like https://desirism.com/morality-from-the-ground-up https://desirism.com/morality-from-the-ground-up provides a good basis for thinking about this. The distinguishing factor then becomes something like, the agent is is participant in the moral-sphere by having "enough" properties to do so. It still leaves the details of that gradient a bit undefined, but at least specifies the basis upon which to make a judgment.
tshaddox 3y ago
> If we can't tell it apart from us.. and if we know it is most definitely not alive or even mysterious.. what does that say about us? That concepts like "consciousness," "free will," and "qualia" are nebulous precisely because they were invented by us to describe things we don't understand yet we feel obligated to insist are special and unique characteristics of our identity.
- TaupeRanger 3y ago
  They aren't nebulous. "Consciousness" means "an existing stream of experiences". "Free will" means "a feeling that one could've made a different choice" (the metaphysical status of the claim still unknown), and "qualia" means "specific characteristics of experiences that one can attend to". One need not "insist" on anything to believe they are unique characteristics of our identity.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    None of your definitions are less nebulous than the terms you defined.
    - TaupeRanger 3y ago
      Yes they are - they are AS non-nebulous as you can possibly get - totally black and white obvious. "Is there a stream of experiences?" is very straightforward, black and white. It's what you have when you're awake, and what you lose when you're in dreamless sleep. Not nebulous in any way. "Can you pay attention to this part of your experience?" is a very black-and-white, non-nebulous question with an easy yes or no answer. Not sure what you're reading into this.
      - jacobr1 3y ago
        No, it is unclear because this definition insufficiently distinguishes a cluster of related, and ill-defined concepts. Consider a video camera. It seems like it is a consuming a "stream of experiences". But most people wouldn't consider it it conscious. Why not under your definition? It works when on, and is stops when turned off. Black and white. But clearly we are missing some nuance in the details. Maybe we also require some interpretation of the experiences? I can spin a convolutional neural net that identify objects within a video: interpretation. Does that make it conscious? No? Then we need something else to define it. Maybe response to stimuli? We can program machines for that, but then also things like fire respond to environment interactions too. And so on. It really isn't black and white after all.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Eh, that's not super concerning to me. It falls into the same pitfall as "chemical reactions aren't conscious, our brains are just lots of chemical reactions". Namely, it's the mereological fallacy: a denial of emergent properties. A single water molecule is not a liquid, a gas, or a solid. The property "phase of matter" simply does not exist until you have at least a handful of molecules.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Oh, i agree. If anything i'm apathetic to us being unique at all. However i'm speaking in the general cultural perception sense. I think a lot of humanity depends.. or at least has built a self-image around uniqueness as a foundation to our believed superiority. We often discuss things that would challenge or overtake us. Hypothetical advanced aliens, artificial AI, etc. However i don't often see pop culture discussing the opposite - us, or even life, being challenged on it's uniqueness. Plus then that leads to all sorts of self-autonomy discussions (which is discussed in pop culture imo). I dunno, i suspect "people" won't handle it well. Hell, there's entire religion(s) built on the foundation that we're uniquely gifted as a product of being crafted in a gods image. To question us could question god. I find these questions neat, interesting, etc - but socially i suspect it would be troubling, contentious, frightening.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    We've dealt with this problem before: Historically all humans being "people" is a relatively new concept in of itself. I'm sure there's going to be growing pains there, but I think we'd figure out how to cope. Hopefully relatively quickly compared to that example.