On 3/19/2023 11:33 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
There might not be much to it. A thermostat may be conscious.
Consciousness might be easy to achieve. What is difficult is
developing a system capable of describing its conscious states, or at
least its own bafflement over the fact that it is something that
experiences conscious states.
If one is a pantheist, then I suppose one sees consciousness in
everything, being, "as right as rain." I have no objection to that
view either, because maybe the pantheists are correct or will be
found so?
Now, by choice, would I prefer to have a Turning-surpassable
computer, or something that unconsciously, churns out wonderful
technologies for humanity? I'll pick the later, because we have 8
billion people to chat with on this world, and I choose to chat
with people. I personally, would like to chat with my fellow
humans about the new, asteroid mining craft GPT6 just produced,
but so far, there's zero in the news about that.
This, comes from my values, but it's non-obligatory that all
humans need value this as a first. Each to their own.
In any case it is important that we solve this problem quickly. If our
machines are conscious, it is important to know that so we don't
create and mistreat a slave race. If our machines have no
consciousness whatever, that is also important to know, if we create
robot companions and colleagues, or prosthetic robot bodies to upload
sick and dying biological brains into, or if we create
self-replicating machines that fill the galaxy, we should know
beforehand if they are conscious or not. These questions will become
pressing very soon.
Jason
There are different kinds and levels of consciousness. There's simple
awareness of internal state and external environment. There's awareness
of temporal self as a continuous being, memory in some sense. There's
awareness of purpose and foresight of planning; planning in which one
appears as an actor. There's social awareness and communication.
There's inner narrative and self-evaluation.
One thing all these natural forms of consciousness have that AI doesn't
have (yet) are personal values; things they are conscious of wanting,
desires and fears for themself. We are so far creating AI's with
knowledge and in some cases purposes but with simple fixed purposes,
i.e. the missile wants to hit the target and the thermostat wants to
make it 70degF.
Brent
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