what is the 'real deal', exactly?
I feel like people have this vague idea in their head of what everyone is trying to build, but don't really have it defined in a concrete way.
I feel like people have this vague idea in their head of what everyone is trying to build, but don't really have it defined in a concrete way.
So basically we're never going to achieve some consensus about whether an LLM/AI could have it, because we can't even agree on whether dogs and cats have it. We can't even all agree on whether all humans have it.
Maybe some day we'll have scientific instruments that will allow one being to 'psychically link' with others and experience the other's subjective sense of being. But until we've got something like that, I think the matter is effectively closed to empirical inquiry.
Well, one way is to observe similarities in the I/O behavior of these various systems, and in particular if they exhibit any evidence that they have goals and desires, and then beyond that if those goals and desires extend beyond merely that necessary to survive and reproduce. So for example, the fact that some humans seem to want to do things like read and write and make art is IMHO is evidence that they are more conscious than salmon.
For instance, with thumbs and a terrestrial lifestyle, humans are more capable of producing art and technology than just about any other animal. But I don't find this to be a persuasive argument for human minds being more sophisticated than orcas. Even if art is the answer, our lack of insight into orca language makes it difficult if not impossible to fairly compare them to us. Maybe Orcas have poetry so sophisticated and beautiful that it puts all human art to shame, but it's completely inaccessible to us because we don't understand their language. Or maybe they're far smarter and more aware than us and could compose such poetry, but choose not to simply because they don't value it.
> if they exhibit ... evidence that they have goals and desires ... beyond merely that necessary to survive and reproduce
Orcas qualify because they play with their food. It's quite gruesome to watch. (And, BTW, this particular behavior is evidence that either orcas do not have a theory of mind or they lack empathy for animals that they eat. The former would be the charitable interpretation.)
What would it mean for humans not to have it? The debate is over the nature of consciousness, not that humans (and many other organisms) lack any sort of consciousness. So when we see color or feel pain, what is that? We are conscious of colored things and painful sensations. There's no real doubt about that, unless you're solipsist about other minds. Which good luck if you are, I guess.
I don't believe human P-zombies exist, but how do you empirically prove they don't? Nobody has been able to devise an experimental test to determine whether a person, animal or AI has a conscious experience or whether they mimic all the outward signs.
> There's no real doubt about that, unless you're solipsist about other minds. Which good luck if you are, I guess.
Exactly. It's fair to write off people who get solipsistic about other human beings because those people are fairly rare and are beyond helping anyway. But if we're talking about animals or AIs, the 'solipsist' position becomes more common and there's no real good way of debunking it. Consider the problem facing animal rights activists who wish to persuade the public that fish have feelings. What scientific test for fish having feelings can you use? Put a fish in an MRI and you can see the fish brain doing stuff, but the "fish don't have feelings" camp doesn't find that persuasive. You could try performing the mirror test on fish. Most fish would probably fail it, but what would it really mean if they didn't? The feelingless fish camp would just say the fish behave as though they have a sense of self but actually don't. How do you refute that scientifically? It seems the most effective way to persuade people that fish have feelings is to resort to sophistic tactics; appeals to emotion, bullying and browbeating, or simply just laughing at people when they say fish don't have feelings. Make them ashamed to spread their belief to others. These kind of tactics are distasteful but generally effective.
With AIs or LLMs, the problem is even worse than it is with fish. Fish at least have biological brains, which suggests they have some commonality with us. Fish have faces, so some part of the human brain is wired to empathize with them. We have a fossil record that shows we came from fish, and this relationship perhaps makes it easier to believe that fish have some sort of subjective consciousness experience that is similar to ours. In these respects, AIs are further removed from us than fish are, so it will be even harder to persuade people that AIs could have the same sort of conscious experience as we do. Even after having deep philosophical conversations with an AI in which the AI proclaims to have a conscious experience, a lot of people will say the AI doesn't actually have that and was merely trained to speak as though it does. I don't see any clear cut resolution to this sort of doubt. There's no empirical test that you can perform that gives an indisputable answer one way or the other.
Games.
From the first clever bloke who came up with an algorithm to play a card game against himself (ie, Solitaire), to the Mechanical Turk, to Big Blue, the the ghosts in PacMan, the NPC’s in Counterstrike, etc, etc., there is a fascination with making something that can ‘beat’ us.
Humans have a need to compete.
We’re drawn to the idea of a machine that is so smart and clever that it poses a genuine challenge to our wits.
The ‘real deal’ that most have in mind isn’t some virtual assistant that can help you calendar things or write letters. No, the ‘real deal’ is always described in terms of SkyNet or sinister AI overlords, or malicious intelligent robots.
I don’t think that stuff is hyperbole.
Rather, I think that is precisely what we want… we want something that can destroy us… something, against whom, we can compete with our survival at stake.
In short, the ‘real deal’ has been staring us in the face for centuries; we make movies and write books about it… particularly in Sci-Fi. The goal IS SkyNet. The goal IS HAL. Let’s be honest… that’s what we are shooting for — the ultimate competitor that, unlike anything else on this boring planet, has the wits to take us out.
Whether it’s bored trailer-trash playing Russian Roullete, or bored Billionaires descending to the Titanic in a jerry-rigged sub, we have a very strong need to make our lives interesting by betting our lives themselves.
The purpose of AI is to make a challenger who has the ability to wipe us out, with intent.
That’s the ‘real deal.’