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to have a first-person subjective experience You actually can't prove _anybody else in the world_ besides you has a first person subjective experience. Trying

by seiji 12y ago

to have a first-person subjective experience You actually can't prove _anybody else in the world_ besides you has a first person subjective experience. Trying to prove a magic talking box has experience when you can't prove another moist robot has experience is moving the goalpost too far out. require a paradigm shift so radical Not really, we just need more high speed training data. It'll all be available to way too many people, governments, and companies within the next few years.

md224 12y ago
> Trying to prove a magic talking box has experience when you can't prove another moist robot has experience is moving the goalpost too far out. Maybe I'm just confused about what goals we're talking about. If your goal is to understand cognition, then sure; a highly intelligent machine is a great way to do that. However, the comment I replied to was suggesting that strong AI would "render the question of consciousness meaningless"; that's a far stronger claim, and in my opinion, unrealistic. I think you and I are actually in agreement on this one... if anything, I was arguing against A.I. having the goalpost of understanding subjective experience.
- seiji 12y ago
  strong AI would "render the question of consciousness meaningless"; that's a far stronger claim, and in my opinion, unrealistic. That's actually a great point many people misunderstand, largely due to nobody pinning down a definition for "Strong AI." I prefer the term "computational consciousness" instead of Strong AI. It gets the point across better about future AI actually _thinking_ and _experiencing_ instead of having people misconceive AI as just a clever if/else decision tree. Strong/Hard AI (and human consciousness) is a combinations of algorithms and data. People have hard-wired algorithms for processing data from their senses. Some people have better hard-wired algorithms than others. But, if you take the smartest person alive today back in time and raise them in an isolated environment (i.e. limit their data intake), they won't be the same person and they won't be able to think the same thoughts. Summary: AI = mostly data, with algorithms to help organize/cluster/recall things. You can't have recall and intent of agency without a self-directed consciousness controlling the internal state<->external world feedback gradient.
rybosome 12y ago
> You actually can't prove _anybody else in the world_ besides you has a first person subjective experience. That's absolutely true. My wife and I sometimes joke that each of us is an incorporeal figment in the other's dream. It's impossible for me to know with certainty that I am not the only real consciousness in existence. It's an interesting line of thought, but ultimately unproductive; what could I do if it's true? If it's not, then the validity of all of the other consciousnesses is just as pressing as mine. Either way it behooves me to behave as though it is true, so I suppose that's the starting point for all of my thoughts on this topic: I and all other humans have a first person subjective experience. I agree with (parent? gp?) that describing the nature of that experience is non-trivial.

by seiji 12y ago

md224 12y ago

> Trying to prove a magic talking box has experience when you can't prove another moist robot has experience is moving the goalpost too far out. Maybe I'm just confused about what goals we're talking about. If your goal is to understand cognition, then sure; a highly intelligent machine is a great way to do that. However, the comment I replied to was suggesting that strong AI would "render the question of consciousness meaningless"; that's a far stronger claim, and in my opinion, unrealistic. I think you and I are actually in agreement on this one... if anything, I was arguing against A.I. having the goalpost of understanding subjective experience.

seiji 12y ago
strong AI would "render the question of consciousness meaningless"; that's a far stronger claim, and in my opinion, unrealistic. That's actually a great point many people misunderstand, largely due to nobody pinning down a definition for "Strong AI." I prefer the term "computational consciousness" instead of Strong AI. It gets the point across better about future AI actually _thinking_ and _experiencing_ instead of having people misconceive AI as just a clever if/else decision tree. Strong/Hard AI (and human consciousness) is a combinations of algorithms and data. People have hard-wired algorithms for processing data from their senses. Some people have better hard-wired algorithms than others. But, if you take the smartest person alive today back in time and raise them in an isolated environment (i.e. limit their data intake), they won't be the same person and they won't be able to think the same thoughts. Summary: AI = mostly data, with algorithms to help organize/cluster/recall things. You can't have recall and intent of agency without a self-directed consciousness controlling the internal state<->external world feedback gradient.

rybosome 12y ago

> You actually can't prove _anybody else in the world_ besides you has a first person subjective experience. That's absolutely true. My wife and I sometimes joke that each of us is an incorporeal figment in the other's dream. It's impossible for me to know with certainty that I am not the only real consciousness in existence. It's an interesting line of thought, but ultimately unproductive; what could I do if it's true? If it's not, then the validity of all of the other consciousnesses is just as pressing as mine. Either way it behooves me to behave as though it is true, so I suppose that's the starting point for all of my thoughts on this topic: I and all other humans have a first person subjective experience. I agree with (parent? gp?) that describing the nature of that experience is non-trivial.