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Comment by Dibby053 | Hacker News Reader

So far, the concept of consciousness is basically metaphysics. It doesn't have a role, it can't be measured... If I may suggest a starting point to get over this hurdle: let's create a "consciousness captcha": some task that is easy for conscious beings, but hard for algorithms. Consciousness evolved, therefore it must have provided an advantage. We just have to find it.

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This is a puzzle with a known solution, although we have obviously not found an algorithm that passes. Casually isolate the being/algorithm from known conscious beings, put it with a bunch of its friends instead, and see if it starts arguing with them about qualia. This will of course require creating an AI self-training algorithm strong enough to invent language independently (otherwise you get LLMs which are likely parotting human arguments about qualia), but it shouldn't require that much compute compared to training and running an AGI for other tasks- humans invent language when you put 30 children together for 30 years (see Nicaraguan Sign Language). This highlights that we have no idea how to train a transformer such that 30 copies of it left on a minecraft server and started from random weights would begin to meaningfully communicate . On the other hand, if 400B parameter versions of openAI's hide and seek AI start arguing with each other about whether ramps are really phlornge or if phlornge is just a property in their heads, we aught to believe that they have qualia.

This might be sufficient, but it wouldn't be necessary. A lot of humans (though not all) believe that at least some mammals, like dogs or chimps, are conscious, though we know for a fact that they don't discuss their qualia.

Definitely not necessary. I have no idea how to define a measurable result that is necessary for consciousness, but a thought experiment with a physically measurable outcome that is sufficient proves that consciousness can inpact the material world

> It doesn't have a role ... Consciousness evolved, therefore it must have provided an advantage. We just have to find it.

That's a pretty wild claim, considering that the only animal proven to have a consciousness is the apex-predator of the whole world.

It's a pretty out-there idea that we're the only conscious animals. Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.

I didn't say we're the only one. But that we are the one we know for a fact are conscious.

I know only for a fact that I'm conscious ;)

> Along the lines of "animals don't have feelings" which seems to be mostly pushed by Christians.

Can you provide any source for this claim? The historical Christian belief is that animals have souls and feelings and inner experiences.

It stems from the belief that only humans have a soul. Here's an example:

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/animals-dont-have-fe...

I think that view has changed a lot over the last few decades but certainly 30 years ago it was pretty common.

This is not a Christian belief, Augustine and Aquinas (among others) openly believed animals, plants, even stones, had souls. A lot of mistakes regarding Christian theology is people mistaking something they heard '30 years ago' with a millennia old religion

I didn't mean it was an official position of the Church, just one that a lot of Christians have (or at least had fairly recently). Let's not no-true-Scotsman this.

You brought up Christians, not me. Was it meant as a serious claim, or just casual bigotry?

Err yes I did bring it up and it was a serious claim. I'm not sure what your problem with it is tbh.

The thread you posted is one guy who says animals don't have feelings and asking for a Bible verse to support it and a bunch of responders pointing out that animals obviously have feelings.

> Consciousness evolved, therefore it must have provided an advantage

This is also my personal belief, but frankly, consciousness might just as well be some emergent 'side-product' property in all 'higher' intelligent beings.

The advantage of consciousness is that it protects the body. Consciousness is the inner loop, evolution is the outer loop of life. The goal of consciousness is tied to its survival.

Aren’t these things supposed to do automatic feature detection? Wouldn’t these models figure out consciousness as some hidden layer over time?

You're talking about it right now in the physical world, though.

How is that different from a turing test?

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