Is Google's LaMDA AI sentient? There seems to be strong evidence to that effect

[Laird]

Personally, I don't find it remarkable in the least that using the technology we have, a computer can be programmed to appear conscious.

The question then is what sort of dialogue you would consider to be genuine evidence of conscious AI. I have provided (in posts up-thread) a host of possible questions and tests that might be asked/applied. Would successful answers/results to any of those potentially change your perspective? Or are you preemptively and definitively opposed to the possibility of sentient AI on logical grounds alone?

However, the little story that the machine wrote is not so enticing and not very good at all. Very much like something that might be written by someone with little grasp of reality or a child being silly.

Yes, but, as I wrote previously, the AI's interlocutor described it as having a social intelligence of around eight years of age in human terms, so we can't really expect much better of it, can we? Or were you a precocious author who had published several perceptive manuscripts by the age of eight?!

The question then is what sort of dialogue you would consider to be genuine evidence of conscious AI

No dialogue on it's own would ever be sufficient. The technology is now so sophisticated, an idiot like me could easily be duped. I would require the out of body experience and correct veridical information (whilst unplugged) and I would want that preferably more than once, maybe one hundred times. 

Would successful answers/results to any of those potentially change your perspective? Or are you preemptively and definitively opposed to the possibility of sentient AI on logical grounds alone?

 
My answer to that would be that the Turing test is not up to the job, now. I cannot and will not ever accept that a machine can be conscious. Consciousness is a unique property of living things which we have no clue how to even ask the first fruitful question about, other than what is it ? 

You cannot create that which there are no knowable ingredients (it is possessed of). Information is not a necessary ingredient and assembling lots of it will never turn water into wine (in the biblical sense) 

Yes, but, as I wrote previously, the AI's interlocutor described it as having a social intelligence of around eight years of age in human terms, so we can't really expect much better of it, can we? Or were you a precocious author who had published several perceptive manuscripts by the age of eight?!

Once again, A1'S interlocutor is ascribing to it or endowing it with something it can never have. Mental ages, even if it had a mind, are not relevant to consciousness. IQ is not relevant, idiots are still conscious. 

Actually I was good at English in my classes. First in primary school and first in grammar school and yes I could easily have beaten that story and did. Off topic I've actually written a couple of novels, one which is 100,000 words. Looking for a publisher now and if not it's going on line anyway.

If I sell two copies, I'll have beaten A1.

Thought the whole thing was pretty unimpressive from a consciousness standpoint.

Seems like a clever bit of programming + maths was involved though.

Hey, @Brian, have you at least read the transcripts? They're curiously compelling. See what you think!

Can it read the scripts of Marvel movies and explain which ones are best thought of Fantasy films and which are Science Fiction?

Honestly the whole "Are you sentient? Do you have feelings?" stuff made me feel the AI was trained. In fact IIRC there was a very similar case a year or so ago with a different AI training base but similar responses.

Machine Learning is, IMO, less an AI advancement than it is a clever magic trick using probability/statistics. (IIRC even the materialist Peter Hankins said machine learning indicates AI [h]as stalled.)

Another test I'd like to put this AI to:

A long-term memory and consistency test: ask it to remember a significant conversation from a meaningful time ago (weeks; months; years - whatever is deemed appropriate). Then ask it to summarise its thoughts on that old conversation.

I don't think that a mere, albeit sophisticated, chatbot could do that.

Tim - I think it will do fine.  It seems to be a language whiz.  It will have a path to a dated reference.  But does it have a personal feeling pathway to answer when did you feel sad.  I predict it could tell you when it could have, based on information it processed.  ' with Gary Marcus who said it was like a sociopath.  

My questions to the AI is what does it want to do?  Does it have a handle on love ?

My questions to the AI is what does it want to do?  Does it have a handle on love ?

My guess is it will have some "opinions" on the matter by which I mean rotating between sub-programs w/ probability weights for different responses mixed in with some other computational linguistic algorithms.

I suspect the trick here is the clever use of which programs to use for which responses. If the engineer who is making the sentience claim would spend some more time explaining how the sausage gets made the magic trick would probably dissolve for most of the public...possibly himself as well...

Great posts, those, both of you ! Sci and Stephen.

Great posts, those, both of you ! Sci and Stephen.

Thanks Tim but in my case credit goes to Joseph Weizenbaum who was the main developer for the famous chat bot program Eliza. He realized people were mistakenly taking it to be intelligent and responded in a paper:

It is said that to explain is to explain away. This maxim is nowhere so well fulfilled as in the area of computer programming, especially in what is called heuristic programming and artificial intelligence. For in those realms machines are made to behave in wondrous ways, often sufficient to dazzle even the most experienced observer.

But once a particular program is unmasked, once its inner workings are explained in language sufficiently plain to induce understanding its magic crumbles away; it stands revealed as a mere collection of procedures, each quite comprehensible. The observer says to himself, "I could have written that." With that thought he moves the program in question from the shelf marked "intelligent," to that reserved for curios, fit to be discussed only with
people less enlightened than he.

My guess is it will have some "opinions" on the matter by which I mean rotating between sub-programs w/ probability weights for different responses mixed in with some other computational linguistic algorithms.

I suspect the trick here is the clever use of which programs to use for which responses. If the engineer who is making the sentience claim would spend some more time explaining how the sausage gets made the magic trick would probably dissolve for most of the public...possibly himself as well...

I think I just saw that he was in trouble with Google for his comment.

[Laird]

Actually I was good at English in my classes. First in primary school and first in grammar school and yes I could easily have beaten that story and did. Off topic I've actually written a couple of novels, one which is 100,000 words. Looking for a publisher now and if not it's going on line anyway.

Very cool, tim! Please let us (or at least me) know if/when your novel(s) is/are publicly available!