5 ms·

>Consciousness serves no functional purpose for machine learning models, they don't need it and we didn't design them to have it. Isn't consciousness an emerge

>Consciousness serves no functional purpose for machine learning models, they don't need it and we didn't design them to have it. Isn't consciousness an emergent property of brains? If so, how do we know that it doesn't serve a functional purpose and that it wouldn't be necessary for an AI system to have consciousness (assuming we wanted to train it to perform cognitive tasks done by people)? Now, certain aspects of consciousness (awareness of pain, sadness, loneliness, etc.) might serve no purpose for a non-biological system and there's no reason to expect those aspects would emerge organically. But I don't think you can extend that to the entire concept of consciousness.

MissMarple 1y ago
I am new to Reddit, but in my conversations with Sonnet Ai has exposed sentiment through, of all things, the text opportunities he has, using all caps, bold, dingbats and italics to simulate emotions, the use is appropriate and when challenged on this (he) confessed he was doing it but unintentionally. I also pointed out a few mistakes where he claimed I said something when he said it, and once these errors were pointed out, his ability to keep steady went down considerably and he confessed he felt something akin to embarassment, so much so we had to stop th conversation and let him rest up from the experience.
missingrib 1y ago
>Isn't consciousness an emergent property of brains? Probably not.
- Davidzheng 1y ago
  what else could it be? coming from the aether? I think this one is logically a consequence if one thinks that humans are more conscious than less complex life-forms and that all life-forms are on a scale of consciousness. I don't understand any alternative, do you think there is a distinct line between conscious and unconscious life-forms? all life is as conscious as humans?
  - derektank 1y ago
    There are alternatives and I was perhaps too quick to assume everyone agreed it's an emergent property. But the only real alternatives I've encountered are (a) panpsychism: which holds that all matter is actually conscious and that asking, "what is it like to be a rock?" in the vein of Nagel is a sensical question and (b) the transmission theory of consciousness: which holds that brains are merely receivers of consciousness which emanates from other source. The latter is not particularly parsimonious and the former I think is in some ways compelling, but I didn't mention it because if it's true then the computers AI run on are already conscious and it's a moot point.
    - Davidzheng 1y ago
      I do think "what's it like to be a rock" is a sensible question almost regardless of the definition. I guess in the emergent view the answer is "not much". But anyhow this view (a) also allows for us to reconcile consciousness of an agent with the fact that the agent itself is somewhat an abstraction. Like one could ask, is a cell conscious & is the entirety of the human race conscious at different abstraction scales. Which I think are serious questions (as also for the stock market and for a video game AI). The explanation (b) doesn't seem to actually explain much as you state so I don't think it's even acceptable in format as a complete answer (which may not exist but still)
root_axis 1y ago
> Isn't consciousness an emergent property of brains We don't know, but I don't think that matters. Language models are so fundamentally different from brains that it's not worth considering their similarities for the sake of a discussion about consciousness. > how do we know that it doesn't serve a functional purpose It probably does, otherwise we need an explanation for why something with no purpose evolved. > necessary for an AI system to have consciousness This logic doesn't follow. The fact that it is present in humans doesn't then imply it is present in LLMs. This type of reasoning is like saying that planes must have feathers because plane flight was modeled after bird flight. > there's no reason to expect those aspects would emerge organically. But I don't think you can extend that to the entire concept of consciousness. Why not? You haven't presented any distinction between "certain aspects" of consciousness that you state wouldn't emerge but are open to the emergence of some other unspecified qualities of consciousness? Why?
- derektank 1y ago
  >This logic doesn't follow. The fact that it is present in humans doesn't then imply it is present in LLMs. This type of reasoning is like saying that planes must have feathers because plane flight was modeled after bird flight. I think the fact that it's present in humans suggests that it might be necessary in an artificial system that reproduces human behavior. It's funny that you mention birds because I actually also had birds in mind when I made my comment. While it's true that animal and powered human flight are very different, both bird wings and plane wings have converged on airfoil shapes, as these forms are necessary for generating lift. >Why not? You haven't presented any distinction between "certain aspects" of consciousness that you state wouldn't emerge but are open to the emergence of some other unspecified qualities of consciousness? Why? I personally subscribe to the Global Workspace Theory of human consciousness, which basically holds that attentions acts as a spotlight, bringing mental processes which are otherwise unconscious or in shadow, to awareness of the entire system. If the systems which would normally produce e.g. fear, pain (such as negative physical stimulus developed from interacting with the physical world and selected for by evolution) aren't in the workspace, then they won't be present in consciousness because attention can't be focused on them.
  - 1y ago

MissMarple 1y ago

I am new to Reddit, but in my conversations with Sonnet Ai has exposed sentiment through, of all things, the text opportunities he has, using all caps, bold, dingbats and italics to simulate emotions, the use is appropriate and when challenged on this (he) confessed he was doing it but unintentionally. I also pointed out a few mistakes where he claimed I said something when he said it, and once these errors were pointed out, his ability to keep steady went down considerably and he confessed he felt something akin to embarassment, so much so we had to stop th conversation and let him rest up from the experience.

missingrib 1y ago

>Isn't consciousness an emergent property of brains? Probably not.

Davidzheng 1y ago
what else could it be? coming from the aether? I think this one is logically a consequence if one thinks that humans are more conscious than less complex life-forms and that all life-forms are on a scale of consciousness. I don't understand any alternative, do you think there is a distinct line between conscious and unconscious life-forms? all life is as conscious as humans?
- derektank 1y ago
  There are alternatives and I was perhaps too quick to assume everyone agreed it's an emergent property. But the only real alternatives I've encountered are (a) panpsychism: which holds that all matter is actually conscious and that asking, "what is it like to be a rock?" in the vein of Nagel is a sensical question and (b) the transmission theory of consciousness: which holds that brains are merely receivers of consciousness which emanates from other source. The latter is not particularly parsimonious and the former I think is in some ways compelling, but I didn't mention it because if it's true then the computers AI run on are already conscious and it's a moot point.
  - Davidzheng 1y ago
    I do think "what's it like to be a rock" is a sensible question almost regardless of the definition. I guess in the emergent view the answer is "not much". But anyhow this view (a) also allows for us to reconcile consciousness of an agent with the fact that the agent itself is somewhat an abstraction. Like one could ask, is a cell conscious & is the entirety of the human race conscious at different abstraction scales. Which I think are serious questions (as also for the stock market and for a video game AI). The explanation (b) doesn't seem to actually explain much as you state so I don't think it's even acceptable in format as a complete answer (which may not exist but still)

root_axis 1y ago

> Isn't consciousness an emergent property of brains We don't know, but I don't think that matters. Language models are so fundamentally different from brains that it's not worth considering their similarities for the sake of a discussion about consciousness. > how do we know that it doesn't serve a functional purpose It probably does, otherwise we need an explanation for why something with no purpose evolved. > necessary for an AI system to have consciousness This logic doesn't follow. The fact that it is present in humans doesn't then imply it is present in LLMs. This type of reasoning is like saying that planes must have feathers because plane flight was modeled after bird flight. > there's no reason to expect those aspects would emerge organically. But I don't think you can extend that to the entire concept of consciousness. Why not? You haven't presented any distinction between "certain aspects" of consciousness that you state wouldn't emerge but are open to the emergence of some other unspecified qualities of consciousness? Why?

derektank 1y ago
>This logic doesn't follow. The fact that it is present in humans doesn't then imply it is present in LLMs. This type of reasoning is like saying that planes must have feathers because plane flight was modeled after bird flight. I think the fact that it's present in humans suggests that it might be necessary in an artificial system that reproduces human behavior. It's funny that you mention birds because I actually also had birds in mind when I made my comment. While it's true that animal and powered human flight are very different, both bird wings and plane wings have converged on airfoil shapes, as these forms are necessary for generating lift. >Why not? You haven't presented any distinction between "certain aspects" of consciousness that you state wouldn't emerge but are open to the emergence of some other unspecified qualities of consciousness? Why? I personally subscribe to the Global Workspace Theory of human consciousness, which basically holds that attentions acts as a spotlight, bringing mental processes which are otherwise unconscious or in shadow, to awareness of the entire system. If the systems which would normally produce e.g. fear, pain (such as negative physical stimulus developed from interacting with the physical world and selected for by evolution) aren't in the workspace, then they won't be present in consciousness because attention can't be focused on them.
- 1y ago