AI megathread

But the mathematical formulae and equations of QM may be themselves immaterial like consciousness, but they have no trace of actual consciousness - they are in  an entirely existentially different realm.

Sure, bu[t] my point is obeying a mathematical formula - especially when the formula is stochastic - is not a reason to exclude whether something is conscious or not.

Otherwise marketing departments & economic forecasts would be a reason to discount humans as conscious.

I don't buy this, because vast numbers of decisions are maded in the Universe which are necessarily nonconscious semi-mechanical or deterministic choices between different alternatives (like conditional jumps made in executing a computer program). Even QM "choices" seem to be based on mathematical formulae and therefore non-conscious. These QM "choices" do not seem to have the slightest element of consciousness in them.

Note that this refers to a quote I did not use!

I think my position is that a device based on classical physics can't make conscious decisions, but one based on QM can. That does not mean that ALL the choices made in the universe are conscious ones. QM would be a necessary but not sufficient condition.

David

But why just LLMs? What about other programs?

Did I mention the automatic flush toilets in public restrooms give me the creeps? I can't remember if I posted that or not.


Yeah I did here:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-a...3#pid60343

The new Liar's Paradox: A parable of perfect people-pleasers

Erik Hoel

“AI welfare” as an academic field is beginning to kick off, making its way into mainstream publications, like this recent overview in Nature....

...Nature is talking about a recent paper by big-name philosophers like David Chalmers et al., which argues we should start taking seriously the moral concerns around AI consciousness (Robert Long, another author, provided a general summary available here on Substack).

They point to two problems. First, if entities like ChatGPT are indeed somehow conscious, then the moral concern is around mistreatment. Maybe while answering your prompts about how to make your emails nicer ChatGPT exists in an infinite Tartarus of pain, and we would be culpable as a civilization for that.

Alternatively, maybe advanced AIs aren’t conscious, but we end up inappropriately assigning them consciousness and thus moral value. This could be very bad if, for instance, we gave rights to non-conscious agents; not only would this be potentially confusing and unnecessary, but if we begin to think of AIs as conscious, we might expect them to act like conscious beings, and there could be long-term disconnects. For example, maybe you can never fully trust a non-conscious intelligence because it can't actually be motivated by real internal experiences like pain or guilt or empathy, and so on.

Yet how, exactly, can science make claims about the consciousness of AIs?

To see the problems lurking around this question, consider the experiment that Anthropic (the company behind Claude, a ChatGPT competitor) once did....

Note that this refers to a quote I did not use!

I think my position is that a device based on classical physics can't make conscious decisions, but one based on QM can. That does not mean that ALL the choices made in the universe are conscious ones. QM would be a necessary but not sufficient condition.

David

But then the question is, how can QM phenomena possibly really be of the same existential realm as consciousness and therefore be able to make conscious decisions? QM phenomena consist of material scientifically measureable "things" and/or abstract immaterial calculations and equations, none of which can make conscious decisions. Thoughts or consciousness or agency are the only possible generators of conscious decisions. 

Of course computers can make "decisions" but these "decisions" are non-conscious, one example being merely execution of deterministic conditional jumps to different locations in programs, "decisions" based on computed values of different parameters.

But then the question is, how can QM phenomena possibly really be of the same existential realm as consciousness and therefore be able to make conscious decisions? QM phenomena consist of material scientifically measureable "things" and/or abstract immaterial calculations and equations, none of which can make conscious decisions. Thoughts or consciousness or agency are the only possible generators of conscious decisions. 

Of course computers can make "decisions" but these "decisions" are non-conscious, one example being merely execution of deterministic conditional jumps to different locations in programs, "decisions" based on computed values of different parameters.

Ah I think I better see what you mean. Yes, there are no conscious decisions made by things that are lacking in mental character.

Particles - or the fields from which they arise - having consciousness, as Panpsychics would suggest, is possible though. I believe it's an incorrect view, but I can't really prove it's wrong and it does have some relatively good arguments going for it. [I do think Survival evidence negates at least some these arguments though, at least as they pertain to our own consciousness.]

To be clear it is possible for our own beings to be distinct from the consciousness of these particles. So Panpsychism can be true even if Survival evidence in addition to - IMO - logical argument shows that our own minds are not made of bits of mind temporarily taken from said particles.

What is it like to make a conscious decision? How do people make decisions? It happens unconsciously they only become aware of what rises into consciousness from unconscious processes - thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, senses of self. You might feel like you are considering options and choosing one of them but where does the impulse to choose options come from? How do the options appear in consciousness? How is the decision to choose one of them made? Remember you can be wrong. Correct logic, right choice, are feelings like any other thought or emotion - that you can't control consciously. When you try to concentrate you get distracted you don't choose your emotions. You don't control your mind. Your mind is not you, thoughts and emotions etc are not yours. The fact that the brain is a biological machine subject to qm that might be manipulated by consciousness does not change this, the underlying reality is that the biological brain might just as well be a Turing machine for all the control over our thoughts and emotions and impulses we have.

And I did not say whether those unconscious processes are physical or immaterial processes, please do not hallucinate I am advocating materialism.

I assert we only make unconscious decisions. 

What makes us conscious is that we have subjective experience, awareness, qualia, not that we make decisions. What makes us conscious is something immaterial. Whether a person, animal or machine is conscious has to do with associated immateriality not with decision making.

The fact that a biological machine could be controlled by consciousness and a Turing machine could not be controlled by consciousness is not relevant to whether there is associated immateriality.

What is it like to make a conscious decision? How do people make decisions? It happens unconsciously they only become aware of what rises into consciousness from unconscious processes - thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, senses of self. You might feel like you are considering options and choosing one of them but where does the impulse to choose options come from? How do the options appear in consciousness? How is the decision to choose one of them made? Remember you can be wrong. Correct logic, right choice, are feelings like any other thought or emotion - that you can't control consciously. When you try to concentrate you get distracted you don't choose your emotions. You don't control your mind. Your mind is not you, thoughts and emotions etc are not yours. The fact that the brain is a biological machine subject to qm that might be manipulated by consciousness does not change this, the underlying reality is that the biological brain might just as well be a Turing machine for all the control over our thoughts and emotions and impulses we have.

If we allow ourselves to be conscious of the contents of our mind, we can then exert control over them. The ego is simply a structure that allows us to create patterns and habits so that our limited conscious attention spans aren't overwhelmed, because we need to focus on the here and now per the nature of the ego-structure.

That is to say ~ you are overthinking and overcomplicating it.

And I did not say whether those unconscious processes are physical or immaterial processes, please do not hallucinate I am advocating materialism.

I assert we only make unconscious decisions. 

Then your assertion is plainly incorrect. We can and do easily make fully conscious decisions.

What makes us conscious is that we have subjective experience, awareness, qualia, not that we make decisions. What makes us conscious is something immaterial. Whether a person, animal or machine is conscious has to do with associated immateriality not with decision making.

Consciousness, mind, astral body, soul, is the associated immateriality.

The fact that a biological machine could be controlled by consciousness and a Turing machine could not be controlled by consciousness is not relevant to whether there is associated immateriality.

It is a simple fact is that no computer, simple or overhyped, has ever demonstrated any similarities to biological lifeforms ~ in any sense. Biological lifeforms are not machines in any sense of the word. They share no similarities, no even in the vaguest metaphor, to machines. Such a notion dates back to the era of Descartes and his dead, mechanical universe, where what made humans "special" was that we were considered thinking machines.

Fact is that science has not a single idea what it would take for a machine to have any form of consciousness. Mimicking physical structures simply doesn't cut it. The necessary astral and mental layers simply cannot be made at this level of reality.

Wanting machines to be conscious, or be made conscious, is a very strange idea, anyways.

What is it like to make a conscious decision? How do people make decisions? It happens unconsciously they only become aware of what rises into consciousness from unconscious processes - thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, senses of self. You might feel like you are considering options and choosing one of them but where does the impulse to choose options come from? How do the options appear in consciousness? How is the decision to choose one of them made? Remember you can be wrong. Correct logic, right choice, are feelings like any other thought or emotion - that you can't control consciously. When you try to concentrate you get distracted you don't choose your emotions. You don't control your mind. Your mind is not you, thoughts and emotions etc are not yours. The fact that the brain is a biological machine subject to qm that might be manipulated by consciousness does not change this, the underlying reality is that the biological brain might just as well be a Turing machine for all the control over our thoughts and emotions and impulses we have.

And I did not say whether those unconscious processes are physical or immaterial processes, please do not hallucinate I am advocating materialism.

I assert we only make unconscious decisions. 

What makes us conscious is that we have subjective experience, awareness, qualia, not that we make decisions. What makes us conscious is something immaterial. Whether a person, animal or machine is conscious has to do with associated immateriality not with decision making.

The fact that a biological machine could be controlled by consciousness and a Turing machine could not be controlled by consciousness is not relevant to whether there is associated immateriality.

How do unconscious processes end up picking which decision is made?

Otherwise I agree that it is possible whatever immaterial aspect we have inhabiting our corporeal form could be shared with other corporeal forms…but it seems to me if this is true for a computer it would be true for a storm, a river, a car engine, a plate of pasta, etc?