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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

> 2. those who believe that sentience is human-only and that a machine can't be sentient, no matter how sentient it appears

Why stop there? There's no reason some humans couldn't be non-sentient, no matter how sentient they appear.

What possible test can you conduct to determine whether someone has subjective internal experience? I don't think it's possible. I think we just have to take people at their word: if they say they're sentient, we have to believe them. I don't see why machines should be held to a higher standard than humans.

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I don’t think it’s quite as simple as “take people/algorithms at their word”. “Sentience”/“Consciousness” are at least in part social constructs, in that the words we use, both between humans but also in our internal dialogue, are social constructs.

I think it is hard to untangle any potential non-linguistic aspect of these concepts from the language we use to describe and perceive them.

Currently we have the challenge that algorithms can regurgitate the language we use to discuss these concepts, and we don’t have the tools to distinguish that from how humans use those same words.

With current transformer models we can make a cogent case that there is a fundamental difference to human mental states, however I believe this will very soon get a lot more difficult once multi-modal algorithms are used in embodied forms and with continuous re-training and context databases.

> There's no reason some humans couldn't be non-sentient, no matter how sentient they appear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

> I don't see why machines should be held to a higher standard than humans.

I know I am sentient, so it stands to reason other humans are sentient. Additionally, other humans act in a way I would expect from someone sentient. Neither of these apply to any existing AI.

> I know I am sentient, so it stands to reason other humans are sentient.

That doesn't stand to reason at all, it's just popularly assumed.

I can hear my thoughts, but I can't hear yours. I can see through my eyes, but I can't see through yours, and so on. There are many differences between "I" and "everyone else".

Just because something is true about you doesn't mean it stands to reason that it's true about everyone else.

> Additionally, other humans act in a way I would expect from someone sentient.

This is totally circular reasoning. Humans only act the way you expect sentient people to act because your training data for "sentient people" is "humans". The only person you know is sentient is yourself. Personally I find that most people quite frequently act very differently to how I would act. Should I conclude that they're not sentient?

Further, the fact that machines don't act like humans is no evidence at all that they're not sentient, it's only evidence that they're not human. They are very different to humans, so of course they don't act the same. They don't have bodies like us, or biological needs like us. That says nothing about whether or not they're sentient.

I think it comes down to Occam's razor. There are two equally valid theories:

1. Other humans are sentient, therefore they act like what I would expect sentient beings to act like

2. Other humans (or a subset of them) are not sentient, they are just insanely complex biomachines that mimic acting like what I would expect sentient beings to act like

In 1. sentience can be explained as a property common to at least humans, and maybe further as an inherent property of complex machines.

In 2. sentience seems to be a property of a subset of humans. Why? What makes sentient beings sentient? Answering this question requires invention of a soul.

Theory 1. feels simpler to me.

Persnoally I think a biomachine that magically creates a subjective internal experience is more insanely complex than one that does not.

But without it, how would you explain your own subjective internal experience?

Does it stand to reason that other humans are sentient? The opposite view is the root of solipsism. What if an AI in the future acts in a way that you would expect from someone sentient?

> What if an AI in the future acts in a way that you would expect from someone sentient?

Yes, this is the meat and potatoes of the question. Personally I think that the safest approach in that case is to treat them as if they were sentient, but there are lots of people with various prejudices about what the prerequisites for sentience are that would fall on the other side of the question.

this is true and any individual person can choose to assume that "they" are the only being in the universe that's actually sentient. the rest of the universe and everything in it can be a seemingly vast simulation all targeted at the one consciousness that's inside of us.

I realized this when I read the first (second?) Hitchhikers Guide when i was like 14. Zaphod Beeblebrox was given a universe that was entirely made for him, which is how he survived the (I dont remember what it was called but it showed you all at once how insignificant you were in the universe, unless of course that whole universe was tailor made just for you!)

The Total Perspective Vortex, it extrapolates the entirety of the universe and shows you your relationship to it, powered by a small piece of fairy cake.

But, in reality, he's just this guy, you know.

Thanks! I knew someone would chime in, was trying to find it on Wikipedia

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