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> Philosophy of mind. It is impossible to create an artificial version of something that we cannot yet define Not true. It's a genuine fear of mine that we wil

> Philosophy of mind. It is impossible to create an artificial version of something that we cannot yet define Not true. It's a genuine fear of mine that we will create artificial consciousness without knowing we've done so, and doom countless minds to endless suffering before we realize the err. I think, with regard to AGI, like a lot of A.I. research, implementation will come before explanation.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
This is all very superstitious. Much of what's said about AI in tech circles has a superstitious, irrational character. There's a very obvious absence of any real philosophical analysis or depth of understanding of the subject matter, only a crude, superficially materialistic, hand-wavy sort of assumption that any of this makes sense. The idea that computers and intelligence have anything to do with one another, in the manner they are often assumed in the context of AI to have anything to do with one another, is profoundly flawed from the start. A formal system by definition lacks features that are characteristic of intelligence (semantics and the ability to abstract from particulars), and physical computers, strictly speaking, aren't a natural kind nor do they, again strictly speaking, even embody or deal with formal systems per se anyway. Computation is a mathematical construct that is simulated with physical machines, and this model is completely agnostic about the physical means by which it is simulated. You could use wooden gears if you want. The assignment between physical state transformation and a computation is entirely conventional and in the eye of the beholder. Now, if you want to define "artificial intelligence" as the simulation of intelligence, then I could concede a loose version of this claim, but it would be closer to a marketing claim than a scientific or philosophical one. Practically speaking, such "AI" could still have major consequences as a sophisticated means of automation, but theoretically, there's no intelligence involved except on the part of the artificer. If you are prepared to worry about your computer becoming conscious, then you should equally be worried about your cup of coffee become conscious as you drink it and subject the contents to the torments of your digestive system. There's no reason to fetishize those artifacts we call computers.
- BobbyJo 3y ago
  > There's a very obvious absence of any real philosophical analysis or depth of understanding of the subject matter Integrated Information Theory seems like a lot of thought has gone into it, and it would ascribe a good deal of consciousness to some of these systems. > A formal system by definition lacks features that are characteristic of intelligence (semantics and the ability to abstract from particulars) And quantum mechanics would have you believe Newtonian mechanics is nonsense, but there are such things as emergent properties, and rules changes as scales allow more complex compositions of simple rules. > If you are prepared to worry about your computer becoming conscious. That feels a bit disingenuous. You're dressing down some of the worlds largest supercomputers as "my computer". I'm not worried about my M1 Mac suffering. I'm worried about an emergent mind composed of thousands and thousands of computers working together to simulate intelligence suffering.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

This is all very superstitious. Much of what's said about AI in tech circles has a superstitious, irrational character. There's a very obvious absence of any real philosophical analysis or depth of understanding of the subject matter, only a crude, superficially materialistic, hand-wavy sort of assumption that any of this makes sense. The idea that computers and intelligence have anything to do with one another, in the manner they are often assumed in the context of AI to have anything to do with one another, is profoundly flawed from the start. A formal system by definition lacks features that are characteristic of intelligence (semantics and the ability to abstract from particulars), and physical computers, strictly speaking, aren't a natural kind nor do they, again strictly speaking, even embody or deal with formal systems per se anyway. Computation is a mathematical construct that is simulated with physical machines, and this model is completely agnostic about the physical means by which it is simulated. You could use wooden gears if you want. The assignment between physical state transformation and a computation is entirely conventional and in the eye of the beholder. Now, if you want to define "artificial intelligence" as the simulation of intelligence, then I could concede a loose version of this claim, but it would be closer to a marketing claim than a scientific or philosophical one. Practically speaking, such "AI" could still have major consequences as a sophisticated means of automation, but theoretically, there's no intelligence involved except on the part of the artificer. If you are prepared to worry about your computer becoming conscious, then you should equally be worried about your cup of coffee become conscious as you drink it and subject the contents to the torments of your digestive system. There's no reason to fetishize those artifacts we call computers.

BobbyJo 3y ago
> There's a very obvious absence of any real philosophical analysis or depth of understanding of the subject matter Integrated Information Theory seems like a lot of thought has gone into it, and it would ascribe a good deal of consciousness to some of these systems. > A formal system by definition lacks features that are characteristic of intelligence (semantics and the ability to abstract from particulars) And quantum mechanics would have you believe Newtonian mechanics is nonsense, but there are such things as emergent properties, and rules changes as scales allow more complex compositions of simple rules. > If you are prepared to worry about your computer becoming conscious. That feels a bit disingenuous. You're dressing down some of the worlds largest supercomputers as "my computer". I'm not worried about my M1 Mac suffering. I'm worried about an emergent mind composed of thousands and thousands of computers working together to simulate intelligence suffering.