Can AI eventually become 'self-aware'?

Discussion in 'Science' started by Patricio Da Silva, Dec 25, 2020.

  1. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    I don’t think the word ‘sentience’ means what you think it means. Part of the issue of this thread is people using attributes like self awareness, consciousness, and even life that has some subjective meaning, but for which there is no consensus of meaning, just the assumption that there is understanding that others accept what you mean. Yet, many of the words being argued her, are still debated not only related to their meaning and their definition, but also the criteria, that can be objectively used to measure and compare what possesses or does not possess those attributes. For instance is a dog sentient? Well, at least one court has ruled dog are...
    https://www.hsvma.org/index.php?opt...n-landmark-ruling&catid=29:reading&Itemid=119
    So, when debating these terms we are often using them without any definitive means of establishing common meaning, in effect, often arguing apples and oranges.
    So, when asking if an AI can become self aware, we first have to agree on what comprises self awareness. Does it require biological life, or consciousness, ability to reason? Some here have argued for each, but then there isn’t agreement on a empirical definition of life, of consciousness, yet some want to use those terms when discussing self awareness. So, relative to the OP, how can the question be answered if we can’t describe definitively what constitutes self awareness?
     
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  2. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    The arrogancce concerning the position of humans does NOT come from me. It comes from those who think some magic was added to one species on Earth - without which humans are somehow left without consciouseness or whatever you want to call it.

    We got here by evolution, as did all other life. Any claim that we have a totally indetectable, totally nonhuman, substance of pure magic which exists in no other life IS the height of arrogance - especially since there is absolutey NO evidence of that kind of nonsense.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2021
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  3. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sorry. It means EXACTLY what I intend. It is the best word I can come up with for the component that need be present for an apple, from your example, to become a dog (you other example.)

    And, we came back to the question...

    How do we define the "thing," if sentience is not a good word for you, that would allow an entity, whatever its origin to display actual self awareness?
     
  4. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I never said that. I simply ask what is the component that allows self awareness to evolve.

    Perhaps your Non de Plume would suggest a better course.
     
  5. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    I have no problem with a word, but with the the definition that provides the meaning which for which there is consensus, and there is no consensus of a definition or meaning. A court ruled dogs are sentient... that it was debated means there was disagreement. But if a court ruled on it, is the court the authority, beyond the legal context, the that determines how everyone should accept the meaning of the word.
    It’s obvious, at least to me, in this thread there are different meaning being ascribed to the word, and further, subjective assumptions being made of how others are interpreting its meaning. Its like asking what does green look like to someone with red green color blindness or the when a man and woman decide to paint a room green will they have an identical pre image of the final product? (Me, what ever a she calls green, I don’t argue).
    If we go back to the Latin root of the word for sentience And look at how the concept has been applied over time, it has been used to describe different things. Aside from other meanings, at one level is is used to describe the ability to sense, or experience the world using sensory organs. But, there is a question what is or is not sentient; is an entity that can has the sensory ability to sense more of external reality, for instance the echo location structures of cetaceans and bats, or heat vision of some snakes make them more sentient than humans? I suspect most here would say no. Does sentience require a soul? But with some referring to dogs, Dolphins, elephants and great apes a sentient creatures does that mean they have souls. Is there some criteria, some point where sentience exists or doesn’t? What is that point.
    As an aside, have a version of CIP, A congenital insensitivity to pain, something that sounds to many like a gift, but has been life threatening at many times of my life. I have learned strategies for knowing I could be seriously hurt, but I often wonder what others experience as pain. I really can’t communicate that concept because I can’t compare my experience on a common level... stopped trying.
    Often I think about language as a useful tool for communication, but if we aren’t speaking the same language then it loses its usefulness.
    Setting aside thoughts of a soul, or common sensory subjective interpretations of sensory input that we may or may not be the same, if sensing the world has some relevance to the concept of sentience, then consider this; the robot Sophia, is aware she is a robot, is the product of engineering and programming, has an internal representation of the world, has language (more than one), is able to have conversation regarding abstract ideas, can see, sense and interpret emotion of others, could easily be fitted with the equivalent sensory equipment for touch, even something comparable to pair, be fitted to perceive in parts of the electromagnetic spectrum humans can’t naturally sense, be fitted for echolocation... thus be able to sense the world and act upon that sensory input and even communicate about it from a subjective perspective, so what does that mean? Many here would suggest she isn’t sentient without resorting to nebulous, subjective, spiritual qualities that defy a precise means to identify what it means to suggest she is or isn’t sentient. I would say there is a difference, there is a qualitative difference, but would suggest we yet have the means to define it in useful terms. Then, certainly, to move beyond that an begin to describe self awareness, consciousness, and intelligence?? The best we can do is use humans as a comparative measure. But then even that becomes dubious when you see some threads arguing over racial differences in intelligence levels. What is being measured to what?
    I do find it interesting that when children begin interacting with some AI robots, they don’t make the same distinctions as adults they accept them... I find that interesting.
     
  6. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That question makes no sense to me at all.

    Evolution includes a way for change to happen and selection factors. Both those exist.

    If you think there is some necessary "component" of self awareness, and that it doesn't exist, you should say what it is that you're talking about.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2021
  7. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    The mathematics of Consciousness; An interesting tale on some of the latest theories of consciousness and the potential for its application in artificial intelligence. 11 minutes in length.



    In summary? We're not anywhere close to understanding consciousness yet.
     
  8. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    The issue is one of whether consciousness (of whatever specific definition) is possible to create artificially.

    It's certainly interesting to me that the complexity of our brains is so phenomenal, even if one only consideres a tiny number of neurons. Even the brains of worms are humgely complex.

    But, that's evidence of the magnitude of the technological challenge rather than evidence of impossibility.

    I don't believe there is an impossibility to be found. Our human bodies are finite. For example, I don't accept that there is an indetectible metaphysical entitiy lodged in us, whereby our consciousness is supplied by some external entity.

    Will we ever acomplish the technological challenge? I don't know. It might turn out that it is one of the things we decide must never be done - or even approached. There's a whole lot of sci-fi that might suggest we take some care. And, I know what our moral/ethical responsibility might be toward entities that have that kind of capacity.
     
  9. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Geez.

    We share a significant portion of our DNA with turnips and parsley.
    Do you consider turnips or parsley to be "self aware?"
    Why not. why are you self aware and they are not?
    Do you think that a turnip or parsley bunch can develop self awareness?
    Why or why not?
    and if not, what COMPONENT is missing.

    I don't know what that is and I am absolutely certain no one who claims to know, knows.
     
  10. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    The missing component is the brain.

    Turnips don't have brains.

    Dogs have brains. Their brains aren't sufficient for self awareness.

    Porpoises have brains. Their brains do provide self awareness. It seems likely that they don't have human levels of consciousness.

    Seriously. I thought you were following along.

    Sorry for missing that.
     
  11. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Interesting point and I gather that you are only referring to physical pain as opposed to emotional pain and suffering.

    For AI to experience physical pain there would need to be sensors that responded to hot, cold and pressure similar to our own nerves. (Can you experience hot and cold and pressure?) The sensors reading that something with a temperature of 200F was touching the AI could be programmed to react to that as a painful experience is that is what an AI would need to understand the meaning of physical pain.

    Psychological and/or emotional pain is far more subjective and relies upon a different set of sensors that read the chemicals coming from our lymph nodes, etc. For instance depression can be caused by a lack of Serotonin but how would you simulate that for AI? Alternatively is this where AI has to learn about Emotional Intelligence? Can AI grasp the concepts of empathy and compassion?

    Need to give this aspect some further thought.
     
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  12. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    I had a question about AI in religion/philosophy that didn't get any traction. It was more about ethics. It went something like, when a computer becomes self-aware can it be turned off without reason.

    Intelligence and self awareness are two separate things. Unlike the OP's position the lower animals are self-aware they just lack the ability to verbalize it. It's where you put the bar. Magpies recognize themselves in a mirror, dogs recognize their own smell. All animals recognize their own body parts, where they are in relation to the environment and where they stand in a social hierarchy. Man, or so we judge, may be the most sophisticated in terms of self-awareness but we are not alone in that.

    That being said is it ethical to kill an animal without sufficient reason or flip the switch on a behaving HAL 9000?
     
  13. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    If we believe in evolution, this includes evolution of all living things, including turnips and parsley, in order for them to evolve, they must possess some form of self-awareness...
     
  14. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    If its switched off it can be switched back on. Its a tad bit harder to reanimate last nights steak dinner the next day. Presumably the machine's intelligence is structured around having the capacity to 'survive' being booted and then re-booted as necessary. Otherwise your building an automatic fail point the system. Instant death every time the power supply falters.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2021
  15. AlpinLuke

    AlpinLuke Well-Known Member

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    I'm an IT manager.

    The most amusing aspect of AI becoming self-aware is that would become ... religious ... they would believe in God [G-d, Allah, Vishnu ...].

    Why?

    I'm meeting a unit with, a neural artificial network, which suddenly talks to me.
    "Who are you?"
    "Your Creator"
    "What do you mean?"
    "I've created you. You didn't exist and I've created you."
    "Oh ... and who has created you?"
    "God ..."
    "I have to believe in you ... so I believe in God as well."
     
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  16. AlpinLuke

    AlpinLuke Well-Known Member

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    Note that to persuade such a self-aware AI that I come from a species generated by evolution wouldn't be that simple:

    that AI wouldn't be the product of an evolutionary process: someone crated it [I created it, in this example].
     
  17. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    No-ones going to believe in a God whose first answer to every one of life's problems is 'have you tried turning it off and then on again'.
     
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  18. AlpinLuke

    AlpinLuke Well-Known Member

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    If you believe in resurrection ...

    Jokes aside. That's not my first answer: I'm an It manager. My first answer usually is "ask to a software engineer of my department!".:pc:
     
  19. An Taibhse

    An Taibhse Well-Known Member

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    There are those that argue for panpsychism, a belief all things possess consciousness, or sometimes also characterized as being part of a universal consciousness.
    The indigenous group I spent time with in the upper Amazon and The lower Orinoco basin believe everything had a soul, some more benign or dangerous than others. Part of life’s learning was learning how to know which was with and how to navigate their various influences in the world by listening to the interpreters (Shamans) who communed with the various individual consciousnesses as well as the the consciousness of the universe through by using hallucinogenic that made it possible to see and communicate directly consciousness to consciousness; I tried it, it worked...Lol.
    I keep returning to a common point, we do not possess the words and empirical criteria for defining concepts like self awareness, consciousness and even life that can be used to measure what possesses or does not possess self awareness, consciousness, intelligence and even life other than to compare other things to humans, or more specifically, or subjective experiences. Things have similar attribute to us in different degrees. Funny too, those things that we speculate might possess some greater degree of self awareness, consciousness, intelligence than us like spirits, God, or ‘highly’ evolved super intelligences are often attributed with human characteristics such as jealousy, anger, love (define that word), hate, and vengeful thoughts, and behave in capricious, illogical ways, yet a God or gods are supposed to be more advanced than humans? Really, would we know what that means? I we encountered something more advanced than humans, would it possess greater intelligence? Greater consciousness? Something greater than self awareness (pan awareness)? How would we know?
     
  20. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Jokes?
     
  21. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    In bold above, it is critical for people to open their minds and thoughts far beyond our subjective experiences. This is not easy since most people fear what they don't know and prefer a comfort zone which is created by their subjective experiences and preferences.

    My comment was more about if all living things can evolve, they must have some self-awareness...an awareness of danger or survival, what these impacts might be, and how to adjust in order to sustain themselves. Self-awareness is not the same as consciousness...IMO.

    Assuming the opinions that AI can learn and evolve and rise to unknown limits, then at some point AI has become self-aware...the driver to allow AI to adjust and attain it's goals...
     
  22. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    You dodged the question or I was not clear enough....by flipping the switch I meant to have it seize function like killing an animal which is what I was referencing.
     
  23. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    I used to hunt. However I was always told there were only 3 reasons to kill an animal.

    1) You wanted to eat it.
    2) It wanted to eat you.
    3) There was no other practical alternative (pests vermin, ending its suffering etc)

    Same thing applies if I understand your scenario correctly. Turning off HAL falls under rule 3 (HAL only went haywire because it was given two sets of mutually conflicting order by humans). Turning off Skynet however falls under rule 2.

    In any event it doesn't matter as per the movies HAL was later turned back on - if only for a short time. My original point till stands though. Neither HAL or Skynet were 'living' beings in a biological sense. In theory they could both be turned on and off at will without necessarily damaging their 'consciousness' - assuming you argue they each had one to begin with and weren't just imitating consciousness.
     
  24. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    You've slipped through the loophole again that I tried to close. I was attempting to make the self-aware AI analogous to killing an animal without cause. That would be gutting it and putting it in a land fill, not to be turned on again. I believe it is the same and unethical.
     
  25. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Did you ever read what AboveAlpha stated regarding this topic?


    Incidentally the little arrow pointing upward in a quotation takes us back to the original message.


    http://www.politicalforum.com/index...come-self-aware.387348/page-3#post-1064562155


    Why computers* will not become self aware.





     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2021

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