So it sounds like they think Google's chatbot is sentient?
...okay.
...okay.
Though on the other hand, even the biggest AI systems are lightyears behind biological networks when we look at interconnectedness.
It at most can not be defined due to its complexity. Also, emergent properties are everywhere, like you can assign properties to a fire you can’t assign to the chemical process of burning. For all we know, consciousness may just as well be an arbitrary threshold of complexity.
But I stand corrected that the correct term is indeed materialism.
What properties of fire do you mean?
If we did make them that way, they wouldn't do large-language-model stuff though - what's that got to do with survival? Humans went millions of years without bothering to read that much too.
Is there any definition of consciousness which even brings it into the realm of things for which there could in principal be evidence distinguishing it's presence from its absence?
The usual argument about intelligence usually retreats into it being a property entirely separate from the observable universe and yet still has it as something for which people demand “evidence” of it existing anywhere they don't assume without evidence that it exists before being willing to accept things equivalent in observable qualities to be actually similar.
Can you tell how stupid the question is then? You can’t just do arbitrary word replacement. Words have meaning and are context dependent.
If a god showed in in-person to whoever asked, easy peasy, then it'd be a different story.
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/06/09/artificia...
Given how vibrant the academic/philosophical discussions of AI and consciousness have been for decades now, it's anti-intellectual to pretend there are any obvious answers.
We're headed towards a dilemma where most scientists claim categorically that a given AI/robot is non-conscious, but most layment think it is. If robots start behaving and talking like in Detroit: Become Human, won't people react with sympathy? Who cares if the behavior is purely imitative and non-conscious, how could we tell the difference?
Read this, and tell me honestly that you can objectively, beyond a shadow of any doubt make a conclusion either way: https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-inte...
As a general principle, sure. Right now, though? AI's are still a looooong way away.
> If robots start behaving and talking like in Detroit: Become Human, won't people react with sympathy?
As I understand it, those are far, far more advanced than the chatbots we have.