On Friday, April 28, 2017 at 10:30:58 PM UTC+2, Brent wrote: > > > > On 4/28/2017 1:11 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > I agree that once AI reaches human-level, we should treat it as a > > person and assume consciousness. > > > > I don't see how this dissolves the hard problem, though. Suppose such > > an AI exists now. What changes? > > Attention will turn from metaphysics to engineering.
I'm not entirely sure about that as I agree with you indicating: > For example the > question of "is it conscious" will be parsed into many technical > questions about memory, values, input-output, learning algorithms, Memories, learning, and values, exactly. So you can't get away with cutting out the metaphysics from your AI birthday cake quite yet Brent, but nice try. > > recursion, sensors, actuators, etc. which will have specific answers in > terms of hardware, program, etc. Answers like "It depends on its > Loebanity" will be seen, not as wrong, but as tangential; like answering > whether a virus is alive by saying, "It depends on its Hamiltonian." Agreed, what we or it finally are will remain hypothetical and of little practical use for now at least. I suspect that the forced consensus in our belief that life = being consumer competing for scarce resources in a corporate/political landscape with the same old insecure, power seeking mindset will mainly permit dominant corporate and national players to use the tech to feed people more tools/entertainment/toys/surveillance/weapons that further tighten their grip on the lower and middle classes. But some people will learn to disenchant themselves from these structures and modes of life/entertainment to be able to raise political clout, get more involved in the processes and decisions that affect them, to diffuse and carefully separate and set aside the self-destruction woven into all those games. And automizing more work and things like programming via A.I. calls for that useless thing that artists do: reinventing identity constantly to escape being our own prison guards; not to win some branding competition, but to survive while sharing fun. Improvising, not merely with the usual consistency in mind as comp, christianity, market and political forces insist upon... but with the guts to face the kind of indeterminacy that permits joy to be the motor of living. Yet perhaps many of us want to be dominated and enjoy that kind of security, repetitiveness, passivity, the latest toys and services that industries and AI will dish out, perhaps it's all that folks know; but then complaining about taboos or some lack of liberality in science is not consistent. Endless balls. For the fun of the thing, to disenchant ourselves from ourselves, or pack up and go home. Mystics without courage hiding in their secluded kingdoms of solitude are joyless, even with billions worth of technology, people, knowledge, and AI surrounding them. And if they are joyless, the probabilities of insecurity and self-destruction rise. Technology, science, engineering are merely guitar amplifiers for what mind will pour into them. The critics of hedonism focus excessively on strong, irresponsible forms, when the approach has one advantage: it pairs well with survival when: a) it works and b) doesn't kill us, is sustainable etc. Life is not merely surviving modestly. That's rigid, conservative theology with Christian overtones of prohibitions and authority. There is some room for learning the art of granting ourselves a healthy portion of luxury and fun. Have that extra piece of cake or another donut. Buy that thing you've been eying, that is irresponsible. Enjoy everything + everybody enough, and A.I. will eventually become cool as well. Meanwhile guard that the zealots and idiots stay away from power and influence. Resist the idiots and liars. Now that I said something non-cynical, I'll go shoot myself for good measure. See you at the next apocalypse. PGC -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
