46 ms·

You clearly lack understanding here too. Simulating "real" neurons at the scale required to simulate a brain is probably np hard. Even if we wanted to try, we d

by __loam 3y ago

You clearly lack understanding here too. Simulating "real" neurons at the scale required to simulate a brain is probably np hard. Even if we wanted to try, we don't have any maps of neuron connectivity with nearly the resolution required to do so.

ben_w 3y ago
I think the bigger problem is we have no idea what the necessary or sufficient requirements are, neither for qualia nor for intelligence. (Not sure why you think it's np rather than just lots?) With intelligence we can at least tell when we've achieved it, to whatever standard we like. Emotions could probably be a thing where we can map some internal state to some emotional affect display, eventually; but what about any question of emotional qualia? AFAICT, we don't even have a good grasp of the question yet. We each have access only the one inside our own head, and minimal capacity to even share what these are like with each other. When did you learn about aphantasia, for example? Is there a word for equivalents for that for other senses besides vision? I can "visualise" sounds and totally override the direction of down coming from my inner ears, but I can't "visualise" smells, and I don't have a non-visually oriented word for the idea, as both "visualise" and "imagine" clearly are and "idea" itself more subtly also is.
- _0ffh 3y ago
  "Qualia" are really just a reframing of (an aspect of) consciousness, which has been speculated to be purely epiphenomenal. Maybe we're just along for the ride, and our actions merely happen to mirror our decisions - or the other way around, same difference.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Qualia is how to discuss the problem of consciousness without a pointless discussion about if this is the opposite of unconscious, the opposite of subconscious, something that needs a soul, or any of the other things that go wrong if you don't taboo the "c" word. We don't know the answers (nor, I assert, the correct questions), though "what even is this?" and "what has it?" were already relevant to animal rights questions (qualia might have started with humans, but there's no reason to assume that) well before current AI, and even if we find a convenient proof that current AI definitely can't and that's fine… some of us want to advance the AI to at least as far as brain uploading where the qualia is the goal, though virtual hells like in the novel Surface Detail seem to me to be an extremely plausible dystopian outcome if uploads ever actually happen.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Look up the paper on the neuron ability to do XOR logic. It is far less than NP hard.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Do you mean biological neurones or perceptrons? There have been publications about both regarding XOR. If the latter, be aware that this was only about single layers and that perceptrons have an unnecessary restriction on the way they can combine inputs.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    No. Sometime last year there was paper measuring inputs and outputs on a real biological neuron and discovered it could do XOR logic. Can do more logic also, that it could also do XOR was some new breakthrough. And, not saying Neurons are just logic gates, it's just that they are something well below NP hard. There are analog fluctuations in potential all along the neuron, and they peak and fire at different thresholds. Really, seems like 'weights' if we want to map terminology. It does not seem like it will be that long before the human neuron can be 'modeled' accurately enough that quibbling over a few percentage points between the 'model' and 'reality' will not leave much room in-between to find a 'soul' or 'spark', or anything anybody wants to say makes humans special.
pushfoo 3y ago
> we don't have any maps of neuron connectivity We do for a at least one classic, small-scale example: C. Elegans. Despite mapping the roughly 300 neurons, the simulation attempts I'm aware of weren't very fruitful. > with nearly the resolution required to do so. I agree this may be part of why. Accurate simulation may require replicating subtle behavior outside the neuron body. Further maps or simulation attempts may have since been made, and possibly with better results. Given I don't remember headlines about this, it's likely that any improvements weren't groundbreaking. I don't know enough about the roles of glia and inter-neuron (not interneuron) behavior to discuss this further beyond wild speculation. Nor does anyone, as far as I know. Gaining that knowledge would probably be necessary to build connectomes with sufficient accuracy for simulation.
- __loam 3y ago
  That's exactly my point.

by __loam 3y ago

ben_w 3y ago

I think the bigger problem is we have no idea what the necessary or sufficient requirements are, neither for qualia nor for intelligence. (Not sure why you think it's np rather than just lots?) With intelligence we can at least tell when we've achieved it, to whatever standard we like. Emotions could probably be a thing where we can map some internal state to some emotional affect display, eventually; but what about any question of emotional qualia? AFAICT, we don't even have a good grasp of the question yet. We each have access only the one inside our own head, and minimal capacity to even share what these are like with each other. When did you learn about aphantasia, for example? Is there a word for equivalents for that for other senses besides vision? I can "visualise" sounds and totally override the direction of down coming from my inner ears, but I can't "visualise" smells, and I don't have a non-visually oriented word for the idea, as both "visualise" and "imagine" clearly are and "idea" itself more subtly also is.

_0ffh 3y ago
"Qualia" are really just a reframing of (an aspect of) consciousness, which has been speculated to be purely epiphenomenal. Maybe we're just along for the ride, and our actions merely happen to mirror our decisions - or the other way around, same difference.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Qualia is how to discuss the problem of consciousness without a pointless discussion about if this is the opposite of unconscious, the opposite of subconscious, something that needs a soul, or any of the other things that go wrong if you don't taboo the "c" word. We don't know the answers (nor, I assert, the correct questions), though "what even is this?" and "what has it?" were already relevant to animal rights questions (qualia might have started with humans, but there's no reason to assume that) well before current AI, and even if we find a convenient proof that current AI definitely can't and that's fine… some of us want to advance the AI to at least as far as brain uploading where the qualia is the goal, though virtual hells like in the novel Surface Detail seem to me to be an extremely plausible dystopian outcome if uploads ever actually happen.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Look up the paper on the neuron ability to do XOR logic. It is far less than NP hard.

ben_w 3y ago
Do you mean biological neurones or perceptrons? There have been publications about both regarding XOR. If the latter, be aware that this was only about single layers and that perceptrons have an unnecessary restriction on the way they can combine inputs.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  No. Sometime last year there was paper measuring inputs and outputs on a real biological neuron and discovered it could do XOR logic. Can do more logic also, that it could also do XOR was some new breakthrough. And, not saying Neurons are just logic gates, it's just that they are something well below NP hard. There are analog fluctuations in potential all along the neuron, and they peak and fire at different thresholds. Really, seems like 'weights' if we want to map terminology. It does not seem like it will be that long before the human neuron can be 'modeled' accurately enough that quibbling over a few percentage points between the 'model' and 'reality' will not leave much room in-between to find a 'soul' or 'spark', or anything anybody wants to say makes humans special.

pushfoo 3y ago

> we don't have any maps of neuron connectivity We do for a at least one classic, small-scale example: C. Elegans. Despite mapping the roughly 300 neurons, the simulation attempts I'm aware of weren't very fruitful. > with nearly the resolution required to do so. I agree this may be part of why. Accurate simulation may require replicating subtle behavior outside the neuron body. Further maps or simulation attempts may have since been made, and possibly with better results. Given I don't remember headlines about this, it's likely that any improvements weren't groundbreaking. I don't know enough about the roles of glia and inter-neuron (not interneuron) behavior to discuss this further beyond wild speculation. Nor does anyone, as far as I know. Gaining that knowledge would probably be necessary to build connectomes with sufficient accuracy for simulation.

__loam 3y ago
That's exactly my point.