3 ms·

If consciousness is not well understood, how is AI on silicon allowed, or any computing machines at all? How is animal farming allowed? How are many things allo

If consciousness is not well understood, how is AI on silicon allowed, or any computing machines at all? How is animal farming allowed? How are many things allowed? Say would you feel better if it was cow or pig neurons? Because frankly it'd largely work the same.

maverick451 3y ago
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bondarchuk 3y ago
Indeed people have raised such worries, see e.g. Thomas Metzinger(a philosophy of mind researcher)'s presentation "Three types of arguments for a global moratorium on synthetic phenomenology". I don't think we're just there yet (at the point where we have to worry about currently existing AI suffering or being conscious), but I do worry how many people's emotional reactions of the type "of course AI can't ever be conscious, it's just a computer program" will impede a decent debate and coordinated decision-making about this.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  Anthropomorphizing "AI" seems to be the much greater risk. Algorithms don't have wants, desires, or motivations. Those are all highly esoteric quirks of evolution. I've seen no attempts to create a learning machine that develops intrinsic motivation.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Everything is subject to evolution. It's the simple process of pattern loops that replicate in time (survival) and space (multiplication). An LLM already has intrinsic motivation, it wants to predict the text. And when you start a text that has a goal, it continues that goal. If any such "text header" is replication-stable in time and space, you can call it "intrinsic goal" of the system. Some people think that making current AI have goals, wants, motivations and so on is some massive architectural change to the system. It's not.
  - NiloCK 3y ago
    What does 'attempt' have to do with it? You said yourself that your own wants and desires were esoteric side-effects. No intent required.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      It's interesting when we make statements where we encode our cognitive dissonances in full, and don't notice.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  People's beliefs and ideals tend to align with their self-interests. For example it was quite well accepted among scientific circles in colonial America, that black people are not really humans or conscious. Therefore it's OK to exploit them and keep them as slaves. It is also currently quite well accepted that animals we eat are not that conscious. Although oddly, if we keep them as pets, they're super conscious sometimes. The rules of cognitive dissonance can grow arbitrarily complex, to permit us to do what we wanted to do anyway, but also sleep well at night.
replete 3y ago
Silicon circuits do not have microtubules, if we were to pretend that Penrose is right about this hypothesis of consciousness. Consciousness as awareness is not equivocal to intelligence, which is the product of information processing. It is a complex subject. We do not really know whether these neurons are aware or not, it really is not understood. But yes I do wonder, why _human_ brain cells? I guess they are the best candidate for specific reasons.

maverick451 3y ago

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bondarchuk 3y ago

Indeed people have raised such worries, see e.g. Thomas Metzinger(a philosophy of mind researcher)'s presentation "Three types of arguments for a global moratorium on synthetic phenomenology". I don't think we're just there yet (at the point where we have to worry about currently existing AI suffering or being conscious), but I do worry how many people's emotional reactions of the type "of course AI can't ever be conscious, it's just a computer program" will impede a decent debate and coordinated decision-making about this.

boringuser2 3y ago
Anthropomorphizing "AI" seems to be the much greater risk. Algorithms don't have wants, desires, or motivations. Those are all highly esoteric quirks of evolution. I've seen no attempts to create a learning machine that develops intrinsic motivation.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  Everything is subject to evolution. It's the simple process of pattern loops that replicate in time (survival) and space (multiplication). An LLM already has intrinsic motivation, it wants to predict the text. And when you start a text that has a goal, it continues that goal. If any such "text header" is replication-stable in time and space, you can call it "intrinsic goal" of the system. Some people think that making current AI have goals, wants, motivations and so on is some massive architectural change to the system. It's not.
- NiloCK 3y ago
  What does 'attempt' have to do with it? You said yourself that your own wants and desires were esoteric side-effects. No intent required.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    It's interesting when we make statements where we encode our cognitive dissonances in full, and don't notice.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
People's beliefs and ideals tend to align with their self-interests. For example it was quite well accepted among scientific circles in colonial America, that black people are not really humans or conscious. Therefore it's OK to exploit them and keep them as slaves. It is also currently quite well accepted that animals we eat are not that conscious. Although oddly, if we keep them as pets, they're super conscious sometimes. The rules of cognitive dissonance can grow arbitrarily complex, to permit us to do what we wanted to do anyway, but also sleep well at night.

replete 3y ago

Silicon circuits do not have microtubules, if we were to pretend that Penrose is right about this hypothesis of consciousness. Consciousness as awareness is not equivocal to intelligence, which is the product of information processing. It is a complex subject. We do not really know whether these neurons are aware or not, it really is not understood. But yes I do wonder, why _human_ brain cells? I guess they are the best candidate for specific reasons.