5 ms·

Oh look, another completely retarded article that doesn't even bother to note or deal with the definition problem. If you don't define what you mean by the term

Oh look, another completely retarded article that doesn't even bother to note or deal with the definition problem. If you don't define what you mean by the term, your argument isn't even wrong, it is just a waste of everyone's time, since there are multiple highly conflicting aspects of and/or definitions of consciousness. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#ConCon https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#ConCon

orbital-decay 1mo ago
It defines consciousness as an >observer-dependent model, subject to social consensus. Which is actually more pragmatic than most conflicting philosophical definitions involving qualia and other handwavy concepts.
- D-Machine 1mo ago
  Few philosophical definitions actually involve qualia or handwaving, because serious philosophy is quite careful about noting vagueness (handwaving) and circular defintions (qualia). Also, saying "I define consciousness as X" and then going on to show that, because I decree consciousness to be X, we don't need to worry about Y, Z, and so on, isn't pragmatic at all, unless you pick an X that everyone agrees on. The definition you give is something hardly anyone would agree on. Social consensus probably isn't even an aspect of consciousness, but at least one can make that argument coherently, if you rephrase it as "part of the decision to call something 'conscious' or not involves social consensus". But this is also trivial and boring and not why anyone actually cares about the "is AI conscious" debate.
  - orbital-decay 1mo ago
    Meanwhile that's exactly what we see now, do we not? Whether AI is conscious will be determined by the social acceptance of that idea, because how can you prove or disprove it without using a ton of questionable assumptions? How can you prove that I'm conscious, for that matter? Call me ignorant, but I see the entire consciousness debate as pretty irrelevant to what the thing is. I agree that the article is all over the place, though. (not that my posts are much better)
    - D-Machine 1mo ago
      Whether AI is conscious or not is independent of the social acceptance of the idea, unless you believe in thoroughly discredited and quite radical forms of social constructionism. In fact, if you stop talking about consciousness, and go through all the various aspects of consciousness, the whole debate gets very interesting. There are various ways in which AI is very clearly conscious or exhibits / involves phenomena that are clearly involved in certain aspects of conscious, other ways in which AI already very clearly is missing other aspects, and then again some remaining ways which are unclear, and which may forever remain unclear. Being clear about the different ways in which AI is, isn't, and might be conscious is a useful discussion and we still need to be having it. EDIT: An analogy would be to recent shifts in whether or not lobsters feel pain, and so by extension, the ways in and degree to which lobsters can be considered consciousness. Research and debate has shifted opinions enough for parts of Europe to regulate certain methods of preparing them. But the ways in which lobsters are conscious and/or feel pain is an objective fact, regardless of what we decide.
      - orbital-decay 1mo ago
        >Whether AI is conscious or not is independent of the social acceptance of the idea, unless you believe in thoroughly discredited and quite radical forms of social constructionism. Are you saying I need to have certain beliefs (discredited by someone) for something objective to be true or false? That sounds like social acceptance of an idea. >There are various ways in which AI is very clearly conscious or exhibits / involves phenomena that are clearly involved in certain aspects of conscious Which ways and how can it be demonstrated experimentally? >An analogy would be to recent shifts in whether or not lobsters feel pain, and so by extension, the ways in and degree to which lobsters can be considered consciousness. Research and debate has shifted opinions enough for parts of Europe to regulate certain methods of preparing them. But the ways in which lobsters are conscious and/or feel pain is an objective fact, regardless of what we decide. That's not what the consciousness debate I see is about. The signal propagates and causes the reaction, but do they feel pain? What is the threshold? Is it just the complexity of the state? How complex it needs to be?
rob_c 1mo ago
Yes, but how else do they plan to announce they have achieved it without 1984 word management/control and polluting the training pool so badly that future trained models agree?

orbital-decay 1mo ago

It defines consciousness as an >observer-dependent model, subject to social consensus. Which is actually more pragmatic than most conflicting philosophical definitions involving qualia and other handwavy concepts.

D-Machine 1mo ago
Few philosophical definitions actually involve qualia or handwaving, because serious philosophy is quite careful about noting vagueness (handwaving) and circular defintions (qualia). Also, saying "I define consciousness as X" and then going on to show that, because I decree consciousness to be X, we don't need to worry about Y, Z, and so on, isn't pragmatic at all, unless you pick an X that everyone agrees on. The definition you give is something hardly anyone would agree on. Social consensus probably isn't even an aspect of consciousness, but at least one can make that argument coherently, if you rephrase it as "part of the decision to call something 'conscious' or not involves social consensus". But this is also trivial and boring and not why anyone actually cares about the "is AI conscious" debate.
- orbital-decay 1mo ago
  Meanwhile that's exactly what we see now, do we not? Whether AI is conscious will be determined by the social acceptance of that idea, because how can you prove or disprove it without using a ton of questionable assumptions? How can you prove that I'm conscious, for that matter? Call me ignorant, but I see the entire consciousness debate as pretty irrelevant to what the thing is. I agree that the article is all over the place, though. (not that my posts are much better)
  - D-Machine 1mo ago
    Whether AI is conscious or not is independent of the social acceptance of the idea, unless you believe in thoroughly discredited and quite radical forms of social constructionism. In fact, if you stop talking about consciousness, and go through all the various aspects of consciousness, the whole debate gets very interesting. There are various ways in which AI is very clearly conscious or exhibits / involves phenomena that are clearly involved in certain aspects of conscious, other ways in which AI already very clearly is missing other aspects, and then again some remaining ways which are unclear, and which may forever remain unclear. Being clear about the different ways in which AI is, isn't, and might be conscious is a useful discussion and we still need to be having it. EDIT: An analogy would be to recent shifts in whether or not lobsters feel pain, and so by extension, the ways in and degree to which lobsters can be considered consciousness. Research and debate has shifted opinions enough for parts of Europe to regulate certain methods of preparing them. But the ways in which lobsters are conscious and/or feel pain is an objective fact, regardless of what we decide.
    - orbital-decay 1mo ago
      >Whether AI is conscious or not is independent of the social acceptance of the idea, unless you believe in thoroughly discredited and quite radical forms of social constructionism. Are you saying I need to have certain beliefs (discredited by someone) for something objective to be true or false? That sounds like social acceptance of an idea. >There are various ways in which AI is very clearly conscious or exhibits / involves phenomena that are clearly involved in certain aspects of conscious Which ways and how can it be demonstrated experimentally? >An analogy would be to recent shifts in whether or not lobsters feel pain, and so by extension, the ways in and degree to which lobsters can be considered consciousness. Research and debate has shifted opinions enough for parts of Europe to regulate certain methods of preparing them. But the ways in which lobsters are conscious and/or feel pain is an objective fact, regardless of what we decide. That's not what the consciousness debate I see is about. The signal propagates and causes the reaction, but do they feel pain? What is the threshold? Is it just the complexity of the state? How complex it needs to be?

rob_c 1mo ago

Yes, but how else do they plan to announce they have achieved it without 1984 word management/control and polluting the training pool so badly that future trained models agree?