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what is a robot dream when there is clearly no consciousness? What's with this insane desire for anthropomorphism? What do you even MEAN learn in its dreams? F

what is a robot dream when there is clearly no consciousness? What's with this insane desire for anthropomorphism? What do you even MEAN learn in its dreams? Fine-tuning overnight? Just say that!

gavinray 1y ago
> What's with this insane desire for anthropomorphism? Devil's advocate: Making the assumption that consciousness is uniquely human, and that humans are "special" is just as ludicrous. Whether a computational medium is carbon-based or silicon-based seems irrelevant. Call it "carbon-chauvinism".
- bakuninsbart 1y ago
  That's not even a devil's advocate, many other animals clearly have consciousness, at least if we're not solipsistic. There have been many very dangerous precedents in medicine where people have been declared "brain dead" only to awake and remember. Since consciousness is closely linked to being a moral patient, it is all the more important to err on the side of caution when denying qualia to other beings.
- mandolingual 1y ago
  "Consciousness" is an overloaded thought killer that swerves all conversation into obfuscated semantic arguments. One person will be talking about 'internality' and self-image (in the testable, mechanical sense that you could argue Chain of Thought models already have in a petty way) and the other will be grappling with the concept of qualia and the ineffable nature of human experience.
olddustytrail 1y ago
Yes, and an object in OOP isn't really a physical object. And a string isn't really a thin bit of rope. No-one cares. It's just terminology.
astrange 1y ago
AI has traditionally been driven by "metaphor-driven development" where people assume the brain has system X, program something they give the same name, and then assume because they've given it that name it must work because it works in the brain. This is generally a bad idea, but a few of the results like "neural networks" did work out… eventually. "World model" is another example of a metaphor like this. They've assumed that humans have world models (most likely not true), and that if they program something and call it a "world model" it will work the same way (definitely not true) and will be beneficial (possibly true). (The above critique comes from Phil Agre and David Chapman.)

what is a robot dream when there is clearly no consciousness? What's with this insane desire for anthropomorphism? What do you even MEAN learn in its dreams? Fine-tuning overnight? Just say that!

gavinray 1y ago

> What's with this insane desire for anthropomorphism? Devil's advocate: Making the assumption that consciousness is uniquely human, and that humans are "special" is just as ludicrous. Whether a computational medium is carbon-based or silicon-based seems irrelevant. Call it "carbon-chauvinism".

bakuninsbart 1y ago
That's not even a devil's advocate, many other animals clearly have consciousness, at least if we're not solipsistic. There have been many very dangerous precedents in medicine where people have been declared "brain dead" only to awake and remember. Since consciousness is closely linked to being a moral patient, it is all the more important to err on the side of caution when denying qualia to other beings.
mandolingual 1y ago
"Consciousness" is an overloaded thought killer that swerves all conversation into obfuscated semantic arguments. One person will be talking about 'internality' and self-image (in the testable, mechanical sense that you could argue Chain of Thought models already have in a petty way) and the other will be grappling with the concept of qualia and the ineffable nature of human experience.

olddustytrail 1y ago

Yes, and an object in OOP isn't really a physical object. And a string isn't really a thin bit of rope. No-one cares. It's just terminology.

astrange 1y ago

AI has traditionally been driven by "metaphor-driven development" where people assume the brain has system X, program something they give the same name, and then assume because they've given it that name it must work because it works in the brain. This is generally a bad idea, but a few of the results like "neural networks" did work out… eventually. "World model" is another example of a metaphor like this. They've assumed that humans have world models (most likely not true), and that if they program something and call it a "world model" it will work the same way (definitely not true) and will be beneficial (possibly true). (The above critique comes from Phil Agre and David Chapman.)