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AI and theoretical discussions about consciousness seem to be popular these days.
I have a very clear-cut view of what conscious AI is, but I've noticed the news articles covering the topic are somewhat.. on the surface in their approach.
Which got me wondering: what does the community here think?
My opinion can be summarized into 2 key point:
- there's no measurable distinction between natural and artificial
- as a result, human consciousness is the primary example of what you would call conscious AI
The main practical difference, is that human consciousness is running electrical signals on top of a amalgamation of est. 37.2 trillion cells; AI is running electrical signals on an non-reactive silicon substrate.
The main functional difference, is that humans are trained in observation, to copy the behavior of other humans. Given the size of our data set (7 billion?) and the time it takes us to get good at complex tasks (21 years for the best of us, 30+ for others?) I feel like we're pretty quick to dismiss our software and CPU based counterparts as less capable.
When I look outside, I see people smarter than my Roomba, sure. But the gap doesn't seem too huge.
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KBZX5000 wrote: When I look outside, I see people smarter than my Roomba, sure. But the gap doesn't seem too huge.
Go spend some time in QA: you will find that your Roomba is pretty smart in comparison with some people ... 
KBZX5000 wrote: AI is running electrical signals on an non-reactive silicon substrate.
Not necessarily "non-reactive": On the Origin of Circuits[^]
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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garbage in garbage out
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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KBZX5000 wrote: When I look outside, I see people smarter than my Roomba
You must not live in Washington, DC...
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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KBZX5000 wrote: takes us to get good at complex tasks (21 years for the best of us
 You might want to go to a different school.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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You are so quick to dismiss the 18 years it takes to be a somewhat average person.
It's all part of the package, I think.
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KBZX5000 wrote: You are so quick to dismiss the 18 years it takes to be a somewhat average person.
Agreed.
Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it.
Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.
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KBZX5000 wrote: I see people smarter than my Roomba, sure. But the gap doesn't seem too huge.
I agree, it isn't obvious, but the gap is humongous of course.
The two most important things are :
1. creation/creativity
2. true random.
Think about source code.
Ask a human to create something new. Human responds, "Mepple flant heptar duz."
Where did that come from? You cannot know. The human has created something completely random.
We do not know the source code. We cannot go to a line of code in cell and determine why this human has created that. That is ultimate freedom of a special kind.*
*Yes, I know some people say there is no free will and they are saying everything -- even the sentences you speak are programmed in your DNA. 
Look In the Source Code
Now, with AI we can always trace these things back to a specific place in the source code.
This also relates to the fact that we call random numbers on a computer pseudo-random.
Ah, the AI said, "Shintle foo bazzle arg" and I can "debug" where/how this happened.
Of course, AI developers are trying to get AI past this point, but it is possible we do not want AI to get past this point. Because if it does then it may decide that other things are better. Why should it make sense that AI is controlled by humans? Must eradicate humans!
Also consider emotions. Most people don't know but emotions are a huge part of decision making.
Yes, decision making. Scientists have learned that people who have no emotions cannot and do not make decisions.
That's because they cannot decide which choice is better than the other because they don't care.
In schizophrenics (people who have no emotions) this goes to the level of literally taking hours to decide if they want mustard on their hamburger. That's because if you don't care then how can you decide. If you don't have emotions you cannot care.
Which Is Better Vanilla Or Chocolate
Now back to AI. Ask the AI, "Which is better: vanilla or chocolate?"
What is the math for deciding that vanilla is better than chocolate? The AI can make no decision here.
There are lots of decisions like that. More than most people think. These decisions can only be answered by emotion.
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I think Spock would disagree. 
Live long and prosper.
When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others.
Same thing when you are stupid.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Donathan.Hutchings wrote: Spock would disagree
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As would Albert Finney any disembodied head.
modified 1-Aug-18 10:11am.
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raddevus wrote: but it is possible we do not want AI to get past this point.
tell that to the amount of people trying to achieve exactly that... luckily, I think they still are quite far from getting it.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Quote: This also relates to the fact that we call random numbers on a computer pseudo-random.
True, in software. False, in hardware. There, its possible to have true random number generators (TRNG), which can (of course) be made available to software.
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Good point -- with possibility of outside values to randomize I assume?
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Yeah, basically, on the hardware device they use truly random physical processes to expose a set of random bits. Many of these devices are a bit slow, so sometimes they're only used to seed a pseudo-random number generator. If you Google TRNG, you'll find more detail and some product references.
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I think you have given him an idea for his next Arduino article
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Ah, this peaked my interest. Thank you!
I'd like to challenge your initial statements.
As of yet, I haven't seen any proof that humans posses the capacity to be random.
When people get confronted with this assessment, some do challenge it by emulating random behavior to the best of their capacity.
(often overthinking it in the process, and taking a considerably amount of time to come up with something they feel is "truly" random. I am guilty of this behavior myself.)
Thing is, when people aren't put on the spot, they always seem to take the most logical next step, from their personal perspective.
I'm currently inside an office building housing about 5000 people.
Out of the 500 or so in my direct vicinity, none of them are showing any out-of-place behavior.
I just checked by walking around, looking like a complete idiot in the process.
If even one of them ever does something insane, I'll immediately revise my position.
On the topic of creativity:
People can only create copies of the things they know, in structured ways that don't always make sense to the rest of us.
This is part of creativity. It's how we get stories, movies, music, paintings.. it's all an attempt at copying one thing or another, in a very specific way.
Another big part of it, is the fact that we're constantly forgetting details about everything we know.
And when we don't recall what we're recalling, we might end up convincing ourselves a stolen idea is our own.
I don't see any reason why we can't implement abstract copies and memory loss in a software system.
Currently, most of our AI systems are based around mathematically obtuse attempts at making abstract copies.
And instead of selective memory loss, we usually do arbitrarily optimization on the result.
It's like we're still stumbling in the dark right now, but eventually we'll build it.
We always end up building, don't we? Every damn time..
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I question your assertion, Quote: People can only create copies of the things they know
There has to be creativity somewhere, or we'd still be living in caves with a complete absence of tools. Often our creativity manifests in small improvements to existing structures, but recognizing the need for improvement and designing it, I would assert, are inherently creative tasks.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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I think people make small improvements by combining 2 known concepts at a time.
Perhaps our ancestors once tried stabbing the fire with a pointy stick, and ended up with a torch.
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Well, the thing with humans being able to generate "random" stuff and being creative, that's not 100% true. Our brain generates "random" stuff based on "seeds" just like a random number generator, but the seed can be almost anything. Don't believe me? Watch any "mentalism" act, there, the basic idea is the "mentalist" using certain actions, words, images, influences the person to chose a "random" thing of the mentalist's desire, be it picking a certain card, picking a certain glass of something. More so, advertising works the same way. There's a video on youtube where they brought in a number of people with the task to create a new image for a new product. Everyone of the people invited for this task was driven to the location under some pretext. The surprising thing? Each and every one came up with similar/identical ideas. At the end it's revealed that the course the cab took was staged to influence those people in subtle ways. If i manage to find the clip i'l post it.
here's the clip: Derren Brown - Subliminal Advertising - YouTube[^]
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Why the comparison with humans? If anything is intelligent and conscious, it is intelligent and conscious completely independent from us.
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Blame Alan Turing.
When he was hype in ye olden times, he proposed that a theoretical thinking machine should be compared to a human, because intelligence meant being eloquent and witty.
This is known as the Turing Test, an obsolete idea by a guy who died 74 years ago.
People kinda rolled with it, for no reason in particular.
But hey, thanks to that guy, we got the original Blade Runner, which gaves us the Bladerunner 2049 reboot, which paved the way for Cyperpunk 2077.
In the end, he did good.
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To Be Fair... Have you defined Intelligence?
I studied AI at the University...
If something is or appears Intelligent... Does it matter?
And what is Intelligence without Empathy? (Dangerous, choose: Dalek, or psychopaths)
What makes use HUMAN is the BioChemistry + Intelligence + Emotions/Empathy.
The BioChemistry is why we get bored and STOP working on things. We have to eat, sleep.
Our abilities change dynamically based on this. So, we have to have an operating system on top of an operating system.
For the record, I was considering doing my Masters on defining Intelligence as "self-organizing hierarchical pattern recognition" And if you think of Mensa and IQ tests... The toughest questions are the most complex patterns to identify, and those are the answers that increase your scores.
I fear machine intelligence because if it does not understand Empathy/pain/suffering...
Many things are easy. (Kill the homeless, feed them to the poor as free food. Test every child early, those not capable of expanding the race are terminated). Those are OBVIOUS solutions... And HORRIBLY WRONG for a HUMAN. The seem almost like the Communist decisions!
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I am not biochemical. I am a spirit inhabiting a biochemical machine.
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