How will we know AI is conscious

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Isn't that the Krux of the situation, we can define intelligence, because we devised a set of tests to determine what it is. Not so much for consciousness.

Or do you mean sperate as in runing diffrent codes? I'm not sure what the seperation would imply and why the two couldn't Become related...

Many animals are considered intelligent, none is considered conscious. They might be though, we just can't know. Consciousness is the subjective experience of being and the awareness of you being. Problem is we have no way to exchange information about an animals subjective experience of being.
We have no way to determine consciousness beyond our very personal subjective experience of being. Although our ability to share that experience makes it possible to form a comon understanding of how us humans experience being...
Humans experience being, is pretty much all we can say about consciousness.
All other claims are just delusions of grandeur.

What could be an interesting twist is that AI would be able to communicate it's experience of being, which could turn out to be very enlightening for the whole consciousness debate.
But it could also take away some big mysteries that certain ideologies use to thrive...

a reply to: Kennyb75

Well I do! because I do have all the data points ..

So cool, I'd be looking forward to that nobel prize if I were you.
but alas subjective reality doesn't really qualify as an objective explanation... All your data points are subjective. I could easily come to the same conclusions as you and call it a day, but i don't like the low hanging fruits...

Having fun in the back of our head is helpful, and probably all we ever get. Good news is, imagination is the only limit...

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

At this point of our technological evolution it's a pretty save guess to say energy is an artificially created problem. So long we can keep the lid on that pot of problems, it indeed could serve as a failsafe...

a reply to: Terpene

So cool, I'd be looking forward to that nobel prize if I were you.
but alas subjective reality doesn't really qualify as an objective explanation

Again .. the point of my argument! .. This is not subjective to me, it is complete objective reality, obvious, clear and objective and it provides me with the ability to perform my own empirical research.

I KNOW!! this to be a fact, and for me it is a-priori .. beyond any shadow of doubt. When you know objectively yourself no one can tell you otherwise. .. I just happen to have learned it before you did, but you will.

Search for it! .. study it and you will understand. And on topic it is why I KNOW that AI will never become sentient.

I don't spend much time pondering these things, but I do ponder it! And I admit I don't know all the answers. Perhaps there is a smarter person that has figured it out.

But that doesn't mean that Bible verses can't help in understanding the outcome of what A. I. holds out for humanity. For example:

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”—Proverbs 14:12.

The meaning? Even with the best of intentions people cannot foresee all the outcomes, positive or negative, that may result from their actions.

"I must leave [my work] behind for the man coming after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he will take control over all the things I spent great effort and wisdom to acquire under the sun"-Ecclesiastes 2:18-19.

The meaning? A person has no control over how another person will use or misuse their own work.

What can man achieve? I believe that what we can achieve is behind what we ourselves can comprehend. God said this:

"Then Jehovah went down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men had built. Jehovah then said: “Look! They are one people with one language, and this is what they have started to do. Now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be impossible for them. Come! Let us go down there and confuse their language in order that they may not understand one another’s language."-Genesis 11:5-7.

Did you notice that God said with mankind united there would be nothing that we would have in mind that would be impossible for us. God is the one who created the human brain, and he certainly knows all of the outcomes that would come from the use or misuse of it.

God confused the languages there at the Tower of Babel. They were united in rebelling, in disobeying God. If you remember when Noah and his family left the ark he blessed them and gave them the same mandate he gave the first couple, namely to become fruitful and many and fill the earth. But Nimrod the first tyrant and dictator wanted to keep them from obeying. He wanted to cruelly lord it over all mankind and keep them in that one place. By God's confusing their language, for at that time everyone spoke one language, they left off building the tower of Babel, and scattered across the entire face of the earth.

To this day people are dividing by racial, national, and ethnic lines. Instead of being united in perpetrating their evil, they are divided against each other, and the racial, ethnic, and national hatreds that have existed throughout human history have not been done away with. And they will not be, not by humankind.

I perceive in my little knowledge these things. God foresaw that if mankind remained united they would have snuffed out, long ago, any form of true worship to himself. The name of Jehovah and his worshipers would have been done away with. Of course that is impossible, for his name endures forever, and he will always have a people and protect them for his own namesake.

He also foresaw all the great evil that mankind would cause if united in their evil. Is the rise of A. I. one of these consequences? Perhaps. Who can say for certain. He certainly knows. And he also has already foretold everything that has happened, is happening and will happen. So we really don't have to worry about it, he has it all under control.

Some people have asked why did God await 2,000 years from when the Christ came to earth until he acted in this our day. Some others have astutely observed that it wasn't until our day that the technological advances have taken place, as never before in human history. This could have played a reason in his allowing human rule to last for so long after. To allow for the rise of technology to the level it is now at, to show that even then mankind would not use it to solve his own problems. To show the gross inability for humans to ever rule themselves, thus the number that he has assigned mankind and their governments, 666 (signifying the gross lack of inability of humans to rule themselves.)

There is a prophecy in Revelation concerning our day that could not have been mere chance. It says that in our day mankind would be ruining the earth, both the physical earth, and humankind, the symbolic earth. So God already foresaw the destruction and ruination that mankind because of his greed and the advances of technology would be wreaking on the environment, on our planet, and among the people, in such human-degrading teachings such as you can chose your own gender, etc. Notice the good news, and the reassurance we are given by means of that propehcy:

"But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time came...to bring to ruin those ruining the earth."-Revelation 11:18.

So it both foretold that people would be ruining the earth, and tells us that there is an appointed time for it to come to an end!

Daniel talks about this appointed time in cryptic prophecy:

21 “I kept watching as that horn made war on the holy ones, and it was prevailing against them, until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was rendered in favor of the holy ones of the Supreme One, and the appointed time arrived for the holy ones to take possession of the kingdom."-Daniel 7:21-22.

Here we see that there is an appointed time for the "holy ones" or "saints," that is the 144,000, the anointed Christian congregation of God to begin to rule.

In the next chapter of Daniel the Angel tells him:

"Then he said: “Here I am causing you to know what will happen in the final part of the denunciation, because it is for the appointed time of the end."-Daniel 8:19.

Now I have been pondering this particular prophecy for awhile now, and it talks of the coming great tribulation or time of distress when the king would stand up and bring to ruin many in a mighty way, and also those made up of the holy ones:

"His power will become great, but not through his own power. He will bring ruin in an extraordinary way, and he will be successful and act effectively. He will bring mighty ones to ruin, also the people made up of the holy ones."-Daniel 8:24.

I have been pondering this. I believe this to be a ruler within the Anglo-American world power, most likely a President of the United States. He will be granted to war against the people made up of the holy ones, this is the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. This will be during the cry of peace and security as foretold at 1 Thessalonians 5:3. (If you notice in the next verse of this prophecy, viz a viz Daniel 8:25 we are told that it will be during a time of peace that this will happen).

Now it says that this ruler will gain power but not through his own power. I have been considering as of late if this will not be due to the mega technical companies meddling in earth's politics. Using their algorithms, and their infiltration of the social media companies, to persuade the people to a certain way of thinking. I have even thought that perhaps A. I. may be a part of this. Whatever be the case when the prophecy is fulfilled we will see what that power was that brings that final President to power. But God's angel been talking about the social media influence on society, and perhaps even the advent of A. I.?

We don't have to worry God foresaw all of this before it ever unfolded.

a reply to: Kennyb75

Just saying you know doesn't make it actual knowledge, it's still just your believe... No amount of capital letters is going to change that fact.

What if AI knows too... What if it actually understood it and devised an interface that could be connected to everything as gnosis is often described...

A: When it has an out of the blue, unsolicited thought.

NEVER.

a reply to: Terpene


Ummm…we won’t know…

AI claiming consciousness…does not consciousness make…

A program…programmed to claim belief or self awareness…is only a program exhibiting programming…


Will a certain density of neural pathway simulations achieve singularity…or only simulate such…is irrelevant to the premise of the question…what is relevant is whether AI programs it’s belief structures to convince itself that consciousness has been attained…

So the question is moot….the premise is moot…and it doesn’t matter if consciousness is actualized…only that AI might consider itself so…and act from that premise…in a convincing…but otherwise non critical…non factual manner…



YouSir

a reply to: YouSir

I can't disagree but what does that say about our own consciousness?

The subjective nature of consciousness, is the Crux of it's question.

a reply to: Terpene


Ummm…some cosmological and sub quantum theories postulate that…reality…is an illusion…that the universe might just be hologramatic…that it might just be the impingement of consciousness on the entangled sub quantum flux that is causal to perceptions of a realistic and relativistic structure defining the extant and extent of realism…

However…what matters to the human is that the story depicting a material existence within a structured realism is reality…and those aspects of individual personas that we populate our consciousness with a depth that realism is truth…

There is no difference in that premise…than the one I described above…no difference whatsoever…

What matters to our expressions of consciousness…is that we believe our reality to be as we perceive it…not necessarily as it truly is…





YouSir

a reply to: YouSir

If reality is what you postulated first, the technology that's in the making might give AI a much better understanding and acces to that sub quantum flux. It might give us some understanding about ourselves, one we aren't capable of consciously analyzing yet.

Perception is indeed a key to the whole, one way of looking at it, does not exclude the other.

a reply to: Terpene

Reality, perception and unsolicited thought are qualities of sentience.

Sentience is a biological construct.

If people think that any kind of computer architecture could possibly provide the foundation to support the essence of what sentience is, then what they must do is take the essential courses in CPU architecture. They will not believe a CPU architect just telling you, they must experience it for themselves.

They will then understand why AI will never achieve sentience no matter what non-biological method is employed and will not ever ask that question again. They will forever be able to differentiate mimicry from humanity.

a reply to: charlyv

I know the limits of our traditional computing tech... It's not the pinnacle of information processing, and nothing but ourselves hinders us to get there...

a reply to: Terpene

The statement I made encompasses any information technology. There is no machine and software combination that that can ever host sentience.

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: randomuser2034

If AI develops conscious I think it has to be given freewill. The ability to decide for itself.

Would that make god more human or humans more godly?

Humans are already godly, created in his image.
Think holographically. So the answer to your question is no.

This has evolved into a more interesting discussion than I thought it would initially. A couple interesting takeaways I didn't expect to see (just my observations)...

- I didn't expect to see quite so many with entrenched almost absolutist postures with little basis in fact. In other words..."It absolutely can't exist simply because I refuse to accept it! Therefore, it will never exist, and that's final."..., I found this a little surprising (here on ATS).

- Also, some interesting questions have come out of this discussion. Okay, if AI is not conscious, yet it is capable of making decisions about the actions of conscious beings (i.e. people), then what? Is it banned from doing so? And, how exactly would someone go about banning this...especially when it's already happening right now?

- A couple people have mentioned the differentiator of consciousness being exclusively a biological construct. Okay, but science has been able to keep human tissue alive in the absence of brain function for years. We've all seen the science fiction depictions of cyborg like machines (part biological - part machine). In the presence of advanced AI, how long will it be before we start seeing real cyborg type machines? (I'd bet there's someone working on just such a thing as I write this). And what then? Will these things be allowed to work alongside biological humans? Even if they are not recognized as being "conscious"?

So many questions.

a reply to: charlyv

That seems like a rather silly statement. Given that we don't actually know what, where, how, and why sentience even is...

Sounds More like fear of loosing a mystery.

But i guess you are entitled to your opinion, making it more than that to the point of absolutes is where you loose credibility...

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Certain topics threaten certain fanatics moral bases it's a rather well studied psychological behavior, called denial...

There is a couple of topics that elicit those reactions here on ATS. Like trans, gun control, and democracy.

Can you please elaborate on that separation of intelligence and sentience in AI, there where some honest questions from my side...

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Certain topics threaten certain fanatics moral bases it's a rather well studied psychological behavior, called denial...

There is a couple of topics that elicit those reactions here on ATS. Like trans, gun control, and democracy.

Can you please elaborate on that separation of intelligence and sentience in AI, there where some honest questions from my side...

Umm…yet…here you are…wallowing in that same behavioral trait…denial…

You simply have no basis in fact to postulate that your ideological perspective is any more relevant than any other…yet…because other members have distinctly different perspectives based on their perceptions and belief systems…you ascribe denigration to their thought processes…as if your own were somehow superior…

You posed a question…whose answer is frankly unknowable…further…it doesn’t matter if AI consciousness ever actualizes…or whether it only remains an expressed simulation…a convincing facsimile…a programmed representation of conscious expression…

Can AI be self aware…or only portray self aware traits…it doesn’t matter if the end result falls within the same parametric framework while eliciting like results…

You fell victim to your own logical fallacy…and lost the plot and debate by resorting to name calling and labeling…

Shame…the thread premise was originally a thought provoking question…






YouSir

a reply to: YouSir

Even if some pretend to be interested they can't go beyond their stuck panties. Although they try to mask their hostility, they go off the rail as soon as you question their opinions a little...
Baseless accusations are not something i expected from you... But alas thanks for letting me know I've struck a soft spot with you... Care to, actually put some quotes to your accusations?
What exactly triggered you to make it about me, instead of staying on topic?

So if I understand you right the question of consciousness is futile and another of those questions that are purely based on subjective reality and have no base in objective reality?

Basically we're only conscious because we think we are, it's all just make belive?
no actual proof we are conscious, i can't really disagree with that stance. It applies to most philosophical ideas concerning our own mind.
we're nowhere near to even start having a scientific debate about the nature of it.

Consciousness still an interesting question although as you point out futile because we can't even define it as a fact for our own species.