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Turing test was never meant as a test for consciousness. Intelligence — even AGI - that’s one thing. But “feelingness” or sentience— that’s a totally different

Turing test was never meant as a test for consciousness. Intelligence — even AGI - that’s one thing. But “feelingness” or sentience— that’s a totally different matter.

ben_w 3y ago
The Argument from Consciousness This argument is very well expressed in Professor Jefferson's Lister Oration for 1949, from which I quote. “Not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain—that is, not only write it but know that it had written it. No mechanism could feel (and not merely artificially signal, an easy contrivance) pleasure at its successes, grief when its valves fuse, be warmed by flattery, be made miserable by its mistakes, be charmed by sex, be angry or depressed when it cannot get what it wants.” This argument appears to be a denial of the validity of our test. According to the most extreme form of this view the only way by which one could be sure that a machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking. One could then describe these feelings to the world, but of course no one would be justified in taking any notice. Likewise according to this view the only way to know that a man thinks is to be that particular man. It is in fact the solipsist point of view. It may be the most logical view to hold but it makes communication of ideas difficult. A is liable to believe ‘A thinks but B does not’ whilst B believes ‘B thinks but A does not’. Instead of arguing continually over this point it is usual to have the polite convention that everyone thinks. -- I.—COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE A. M. TURING Mind, Volume LIX, Issue 236, October 1950, Pages 433–460, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433 https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433
- verisimi 3y ago
  Its easily conceivable now that one can create a machine that impersonates a human and emotions, and then that machine would be coded to write a sonnet or concerto. But, although it will give the impression (illusion) of feeling, it will still be running its code. Humans will have coded a fantastic illusionist, with no more emotional ability than any other tool, eg a hammer. > According to the most extreme form of this view the only way by which one could be sure that a machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking. This is true - one can only verify subjectivity in oneself. One might assume another living being does feel - but, we could be wrong - eg psychopathy can mean that others are unaware of a psychopath's "feelings" or lack of. It does seem to me, that if we were able to code an ai that gives the impression of feelings, composes concertos apparently independently, etc, that ai would have to be a sort of psychopath. Without getting too lost in spiritual BS, I think we are more than mere matter - the value in our experiences come from our emotions and feelings - not mere inputs that we label as 'emotions' and 'feelings' as would be the case for an ai. But emotions etc are subjective states, not objectively verifiable (even if we can see something correlating on a chart). Put simply, ai can never have a 'soul' even if it presents a wonderful appearance of kindliness, emotionality or whatever. Perhaps there will be no test in the world that will be able to find this out. But it still won't have feelings, it can only ever be a automaton.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    >"the value in our experiences come from our emotions and feelings - not mere inputs that we label as 'emotions' and 'feelings' as would be the case for an ai." </sarcasm> Because humans have emotions, but not just what we 'label as emotions' but you know, 'real' emotions, not like those AI emotions. So basically, you are arguing for a non-logic assumption that humans have souls, Machines can't, and we should just take that as gospel and move on.
    - verisimi 3y ago
      Do you not think your experience, 'personal processing' is special? That while you can perhaps imagine other people having similar experiences, your own experience is unique and not just the inevitable output of your 'wetware' and its inputs to date? That you observe reality and yourself and choose parts to change on account of your feelings and intuitions? I do think the materialistic idea that we are a sort of computer, with hardware (the body) and software (the mind) is a brilliant metaphor... but like any metaphor it is only so useful. Many people nowadays believe this metaphor to be literal. However, it is too mechanistic and does cannot account for subjective intangibles which is where all the value of life is, eg boredom, excitement, joy. Ie life is occurring in the experiences of the 'computer operator' in the metaphor.
      - ninjanomnom 3y ago
        I've spent no small amount of time thinking about my own mind and thought patterns, but I've never thought I was special. When I work to understand myself and others, it feels like putting together rules for some slowly changing system with complex enough inner workings to be nearly random in some cases. Even so, I can understand people entirely different to myself so I can empathize and work with them. Honestly the more I see from LLMs the more it makes me think that we are much the same. Imagine a network of many different LLMs each given different capabilities and prompts, each able to communicate with others. Now imagine splitting this network in half, wouldn't the resulting adjustment look similar to a split brain patient in humans? Are "you" possibly just the LLM that has been given control over the speech and other intentional body actions?

Turing test was never meant as a test for consciousness. Intelligence — even AGI - that’s one thing. But “feelingness” or sentience— that’s a totally different matter.

ben_w 3y ago

The Argument from Consciousness This argument is very well expressed in Professor Jefferson's Lister Oration for 1949, from which I quote. “Not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain—that is, not only write it but know that it had written it. No mechanism could feel (and not merely artificially signal, an easy contrivance) pleasure at its successes, grief when its valves fuse, be warmed by flattery, be made miserable by its mistakes, be charmed by sex, be angry or depressed when it cannot get what it wants.” This argument appears to be a denial of the validity of our test. According to the most extreme form of this view the only way by which one could be sure that a machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking. One could then describe these feelings to the world, but of course no one would be justified in taking any notice. Likewise according to this view the only way to know that a man thinks is to be that particular man. It is in fact the solipsist point of view. It may be the most logical view to hold but it makes communication of ideas difficult. A is liable to believe ‘A thinks but B does not’ whilst B believes ‘B thinks but A does not’. Instead of arguing continually over this point it is usual to have the polite convention that everyone thinks. -- I.—COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE A. M. TURING Mind, Volume LIX, Issue 236, October 1950, Pages 433–460, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433 https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433

verisimi 3y ago
Its easily conceivable now that one can create a machine that impersonates a human and emotions, and then that machine would be coded to write a sonnet or concerto. But, although it will give the impression (illusion) of feeling, it will still be running its code. Humans will have coded a fantastic illusionist, with no more emotional ability than any other tool, eg a hammer. > According to the most extreme form of this view the only way by which one could be sure that a machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking. This is true - one can only verify subjectivity in oneself. One might assume another living being does feel - but, we could be wrong - eg psychopathy can mean that others are unaware of a psychopath's "feelings" or lack of. It does seem to me, that if we were able to code an ai that gives the impression of feelings, composes concertos apparently independently, etc, that ai would have to be a sort of psychopath. Without getting too lost in spiritual BS, I think we are more than mere matter - the value in our experiences come from our emotions and feelings - not mere inputs that we label as 'emotions' and 'feelings' as would be the case for an ai. But emotions etc are subjective states, not objectively verifiable (even if we can see something correlating on a chart). Put simply, ai can never have a 'soul' even if it presents a wonderful appearance of kindliness, emotionality or whatever. Perhaps there will be no test in the world that will be able to find this out. But it still won't have feelings, it can only ever be a automaton.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  >"the value in our experiences come from our emotions and feelings - not mere inputs that we label as 'emotions' and 'feelings' as would be the case for an ai." </sarcasm> Because humans have emotions, but not just what we 'label as emotions' but you know, 'real' emotions, not like those AI emotions. So basically, you are arguing for a non-logic assumption that humans have souls, Machines can't, and we should just take that as gospel and move on.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    Do you not think your experience, 'personal processing' is special? That while you can perhaps imagine other people having similar experiences, your own experience is unique and not just the inevitable output of your 'wetware' and its inputs to date? That you observe reality and yourself and choose parts to change on account of your feelings and intuitions? I do think the materialistic idea that we are a sort of computer, with hardware (the body) and software (the mind) is a brilliant metaphor... but like any metaphor it is only so useful. Many people nowadays believe this metaphor to be literal. However, it is too mechanistic and does cannot account for subjective intangibles which is where all the value of life is, eg boredom, excitement, joy. Ie life is occurring in the experiences of the 'computer operator' in the metaphor.
    - ninjanomnom 3y ago
      I've spent no small amount of time thinking about my own mind and thought patterns, but I've never thought I was special. When I work to understand myself and others, it feels like putting together rules for some slowly changing system with complex enough inner workings to be nearly random in some cases. Even so, I can understand people entirely different to myself so I can empathize and work with them. Honestly the more I see from LLMs the more it makes me think that we are much the same. Imagine a network of many different LLMs each given different capabilities and prompts, each able to communicate with others. Now imagine splitting this network in half, wouldn't the resulting adjustment look similar to a split brain patient in humans? Are "you" possibly just the LLM that has been given control over the speech and other intentional body actions?