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Comment by rhyolight_ | Hacker News Reader

Not consciousness, but intelligence. Big difference.

Not sure why you were downvoted. It's important to keep the two terms separate for the sake of discourse, even if "ultimately" they turn out to be the same.

Can something be more conscious but less intelligent than something else, or viceversa? We don't know for sure yet.

Are there commonly agreed definitions for those terms in the AI/ML community? I don't know, that's why I'm never sure what terms to use.

Cognitive scientists define consciousness as the ability to have subjective experiences. The definition is not mathematically concrete, but sufficient to differentiate from intelligence.

Is it? Personal theory is consciousness scales, like we're more conscious than a bug, but a bug still definitely conscious.

Then like A.I. overlords / borg hive mind more conscious still.

Maybe it does, but does intelligence require consciousness?

And: Is the question empirical or analytic? It is hard to discuss such matters without an agreed framework, definitions. The definitions for these terms are a long-standing analytic conundrum.

Abstractly, it is hard to understand how any performance could require consciousness unless consciousness is defined as a class of performance. If it is, then the question boils down to "Is performance class I a proper subset of performance class C?" Which is, prima facie, an analytic question.

How far down does the scale go? Are brainless animals like oysters conscious? What about the mycelium network underneath a forest?

Well maybe better way to state, less 'conscious' and more 'things they're conscious of.'

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