5 ms·
People who believe that AI might become conscious
- OgsyedIE 1y agoAn argument in favor of AI consciousness (which I believe originates with Dennett) is that we already have examples, in the real world today, of things that are not conscious becoming things that are conscious. Gametes. Sperm and egg cells, which are almost certainly not conscious, become babies in the right conditions, which are almost certainly conscious.
- DoingIsLearning 1y ago> in the real world today, of things that are not conscious becoming things that are conscious. Gametes. This kind of goes into the whole research field of António Damásio on consciousness. We can easily assess if a human is conscious from a medical point of view. But do we have a deterministic test to prove an abstract entity is conscious?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> We can easily assess if a human is conscious from a medical point of view We can’t. We can infer, from what they say and whether they’re ambulatory, that they’re probably conscious. But we often get it wrong. Empirically, we aren’t that far ahead of Descartes.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ben_w 1y ago> We can easily assess if a human is conscious from a medical point of view Well, we can for *some* of the 40 different definitions of the word. But there are people who are misdiagnosed to be in a vegetative state who later wake up and report experiences from when they appeared so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetative_state#Misdiagnoses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetative_state#Misdiagnoses Are you conscious when you dream, or is it just a memory replayed by your waking mind? Or only when it's a lucid dream? Or are lucid dreams themselves just the illusion of consciousness? What about when you sleepwalk? What about hypnopompic and hypnogogic states? What about chemically altered consciousness like blind drunk, stoned, tripping on LSD?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> An argument in favor of AI consciousness (which I believe originates with Dennett) is that we already have examples, in the real world today, of things that are not conscious becoming things that are conscious. Gametes This is closer to an argument for the existence of consciousness than anything pertaining to AI.
- csomar 1y agoGametes do not become conscious. They turn into a fetus, then baby, and then 5-6 years later you get consciousness.
- OgsyedIE 1y agoSo, a thing that isn't conscious becomes a thing that is?
- keiferski 1y agoThis only makes sense if you zoom in at one part of a process and declare it entirely a unique thing, unconnected to the other predictable stages in that process. AI might become “conscious” in the future, but you’re assuming that current AI is just one stage in a process - which we have not yet experienced, unlike the other processes mentioned.
- K0balt 1y ago“Consciousness” is most likely one of those “emergent” things that really are just a continuum. Like an airplane taking off, most “emergent” behaviors are actually continuous processes that eventually become pronounced enough to recognize. Even though through the entire takeoff roll, the plane is just getting lighter and lighter - even after it’s airborne - until the wheels leave the ground it seems to be just a really awkward, noisy bus. Animals, down to insects, exhibit signs of self awareness and “conscious” behavior. It’s easy to remain incredulous for a variety of reasons, many of which I personally agree with… but I’d say that there appears to be progress towards something we would recognize as consciousness, and the process appears to be ongoing.
- keiferski 1y agoEven though I probably agree that consciousness is an emergent quality, to be intellectually honest, we have to admit that it's a bit more complicated than that: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/ But that also doesn't really address the process critique that my comment was about, which is a different argument form.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- jqpabc123 1y agoThis is the modern version of alchemy. Without a single example or a shred of scientific evidence, alchemists became convinced it was possible to turn lead into gold with the right chemical reaction. And their "beliefs" persisted for centuries. AI "believers" today are in exactly the same position. This is how religion starts. This is more about "beliefs" than science.
- david-gpu 1y agoThat is how every major innovation occurs. Flight was once considered impossible. I am not saying that this particular effort will succeed, I am saying that revolutions start with once-preposterous ideas.
- jqpabc123 1y agoThe first record of man made, heavier than air craft (kites) dates back to at least the 5th century BC. Evidence showing it was possible has existed for a very long time. The evidence for man made consciousness is ... ??? At this point, we don't even have a good definition of what consciousness is. Just like alchemists, we're fumbling around with something we don't really understand and expecting some sort of fantastical result.
- ben_w 1y ago> The evidence for man made consciousness is ... ??? At this point, we don't even have a good definition of what consciousness is. We have 40 definitions; while I suspect you're right that they are not good enough, some of them may be. The evidence for machine consciousness is "look at what this does, it's acting in the way we spent the last 76 years saying machines could only act like if they were conscious". Which is weak evidence given the arguments about what defines consciousness, but it's more than nothing. To use your alchemy analogy, it might be to actual consciousness as iron pyrite is to gold — shiny, but not the real thing.
- jqpabc123 1y ago
- NetRunnerSu 1y agoNo, prediction is not enough. https://dmf-archive.github.io https://dmf-archive.github.io
- stormfather 1y agoIf you had a robot doing all the computations of a LLM on pencil and paper instead of GPUs, would anyone think it was conscious?
- grantcas 1y ago[dead]