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

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...ss/661329/

A very thought-provoking new article on this topic involving the supposed consciousness of the AI system LaMDA, that also reveals some new AI research that though it does not come anywhere nearer to generating consciousness, does generate a convincing simulacrum of human reasoning, a feature of human intelligent thought that seemingly has been impossible for deep learning AI.

Thanks for the link!  I have been pointing away from finding a metaphysical reasoning pathway to one of basic science.  Consciousness, as a representative term, has entangled itself with elements and concepts that are not open to measurement.  I have been pointing to the information science ability to parse the KEY variable for mind's output.  That variable being the outcomes from mental functioning of - understanding.  Here again - I find the progressive and thoughtful papers noting its importance.  ibid, Atlantic

 On the one hand, PaLM and other large language models are capable of understanding in the sense that if you tell them something, its meaning registers.(*) On the other hand, this is nothing at all like human understanding. “I find our language is not good at expressing these things,” Zoubin Ghahramani, the vice president  of research at Google, told me. “We have words for mapping meaning between sentences and objects, and the words that we use are words like understanding.  The problem is that, in a narrow sense, you could say these systems understand just like a calculator understands addition, and in a deeper sense they don’t understand.

(*) measured in units of mutual information
(**) information objects structured from mutual information interconnecting functionality

Thanks Nbtruthman, for that contribution. I'd just like to make a couple of observations:

It should be noted that the casual claim that all an omnipotent God needs to do is step in whenever accident, disease or evil doings ensue, and cancel out, prevent these happenings.

I don't think the concept of an omnipotent God is tenable. I mean however life evolved on Earth, why should an omnipotent god bother to evolve life - why not just bring the finished products into existence by command?

Also, the distinguishing feature of the Cambrian period of pre-history was that animals with many different body plans suddenly appeared in the fossil record. Most of these forms were abandoned very soon. Doesn't that look like the work of a god who tested out a set of hunches to discover what worked best?

his rationalization has the advantage of having a large body of empirical evidence to partially back it up. This would primarily be the very many veridical independently verified NDE experiences, and also the similarly investigated and verified reincarnation memories of small children. Also to be considered excellent empirical evidence is the large body of verified mediumistic communications. This area supplements the trade-off insights constituted by the large body of scientific knowledge of the world and living beings that has been built up through the scientific method.

This does seem the most plausible big picture. There is a remarkable amount of evidence for this scenario. The overwhelming picture from NDE's is of a loving but essentially non-judgemental god.

Some people seem to have an amazing appetite to endure all kinds of hardship just for fun. I think this may hint at why some people choose their next life (assuming that happens) so as to experience hardships of various sorts!

This engineer was on Tucker Carlson last night, calling LaMDA a "person" and a "child". There is something ridiculous about this guy.... I dunno.... . Watch the program yourselves. It's "Tucker Carlson Tonight", Wednesday, 06/22/22

[Laird]

This engineer was on Tucker Carlson last night, calling LaMDA a "person" and a "child". There is something ridiculous about this guy.... I dunno.... . Watch the program yourselves. It's "Tucker Carlson Tonight", Wednesday, 06/22/22

Here's a direct link to the video: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6308358023112

I didn't find him ridiculous, but that's just my take. He might be wrong, but he seems humble enough to admit that more testing is required.

Re @nbtruthman's response to my thoughts on God: I'm hoping to think it through and maybe offer a response in turn. I thought that if I do that - or if anybody else wants to do that themselves before I get to it - it could be done in a new thread, in the "Philosophy" forum, titled something like "Theodicies", which we could then link to from here to avoid this thread going too off-topic (and I know: it was me who introduced the off-topic material in the first place). We could potentially discuss other specific theodicies and/or theodicy in general in that thread.

Do you not, then, think that there's a meaningful correspondence between the neural networks implemented in machine learning, and the neural networks in biological brains?

OK, I am not Sci, but I think perhaps the 'relationship' between a man and his computer is analogous to the relationship between a mind and its brain!

If someone examined our ordinary run of the mill computers - the hardware and the software - they would find some enormously repetitive structures - the RAM memory, and the solid state drive. If they could examine the contents of either of these structures with the power still on, they could find a huge amount of information about us - our interests, friends, contacts, thoughts. If you didn't know that all this stuff is actually run by a piece of biological stuff outside the box, it would be easy to make up plausible stories based on the idea that the machine was self conscious and ran itself.

Inside the brain there are also some highly repetitive structures that seem to contain a lot of information about us. It is awfully easy to assume that nothing from outside runs this structure - that it thinks for itself.

Both computer and brain deteriorate if they are damaged in some way, and this can be interpreted as evidence that nothing extra is in control. A man trying to communicate using a faulty computer may come across as half-witted.

Note that in both cases chunks of the seemingly repetitious structures get filled with information.

I must admit, I am rather committed to the idea that NDE's give us a good idea about what is beyond, and that we probably get a large number of incarnations to optimise our behaviour. I just wish I could figure out what is the ultimate goal of it all.

Really hard to watch anything on Tucker Carlson's show.  The guy's one of the most morally bankrupt individuals I've ever laid eyes on.  Amazes me that anyone considers him a reliable source for perspective/analysis/news.  He's a carnival barker.

His commentary on this subject just proves my point further.  His opening remarks were ridiculous.

Lemoine was fine; not ridiculous.  Granted the interviewer is a moron with absolutely no desire to critically think or ask intelligent questions.  That's too bad because Lemoine's "instinct" needs to be challenged and evaluated methodically.  Google should be sharing/doing more to be transparent here and its notable that they don't appear to be doing so.

Still, the most frustrating part about this interview is the clown known as Tucker Carlson.  The lack of substance and general grandstanding is how he handles every interview, every monologue.  Its close to evil in my view as he's doing it for money and it affects the way people in society behave.  Ugh; gross.

OK, I am not Sci, but I think perhaps the 'relationship' between a man and his computer is analogous to the relationship between a mind and its brain!

If someone examined our ordinary run of the mill computers - the hardware and the software - they would find some enormously repetitive structures - the RAM memory, and the solid state drive. If they could examine the contents of either of these structures with the power still on, they could find a huge amount of information about us - our interests, friends, contacts, thoughts. If you didn't know that all this stuff is actually run by a piece of biological stuff outside the box, it would be easy to make up plausible stories based on the idea that the machine was self conscious and ran itself.

Inside the brain there are also some highly repetitive structures that seem to contain a lot of information about us. It is awfully easy to assume that nothing from outside runs this structure - that it thinks for itself.

Both computer and brain deteriorate if they are damaged in some way, and this can be interpreted as evidence that nothing extra is in control. A man trying to communicate using a faulty computer may come across as half-witted.

Note that in both cases chunks of the seemingly repetitious structures get filled with information.

I must admit, I am rather committed to the idea that NDE's give us a good idea about what is beyond, and that we probably get a large number of incarnations to optimise our behaviour. I just wish I could figure out what is the ultimate goal of it all.

Of course, I suppose your point must be that these supposed "indications" that the mind and the brain are one in the same in some important sense, can be seen to be entirely superficial given the TV set analogy of the mind-brain relationship. Look at a modern digital TV set. It will contain an immense amount of digitally recorded programming information of live actors doing their thing (information about us at least in a generic sense), plus an immensely complex system of circuitry, processing and displaying on the screen and producing sounds of a live program involving live human actors. 

And of course, the TV's pictures and sounds gravely deteriorate if the TV set is damaged. 

But does all this mean that the TV set is entirely generating these pictures and sounds? Of course not - they are in reality merely being recorded and transduced within the TV from electric RF and digital signals being transmitted to the TV set from distant remote locations, and ultimately from actual live human beings. If the circuitry and digital memory in the TV are disrupted, of course the picture and sounds are likewise degraded or destroyed. And in reality the TV set and its physical circuits and memory are no more alive and conscious than that photograph of my dead grandfather.

He says it better than I could...

From the new article at https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-...s-why-not/ :

(an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the new book Non-Computable You by Robert J. Marks II):

"Artificial intelligence has done many remarkable things. AI has largely replaced travel agents, tollbooth attendants, and mapmakers. But will AI ever replace attorneys, physicians, military strategists, and design engineers, among others?
The answer is no. And the reason is that as impressive as artificial intelligence is — and make no mistake, it is fantastically impressive — it doesn’t hold a candle to human intelligence. It doesn’t hold a candle to you.
And it never will. How do we know? The answer can be stated in a single four-syllable word that needs unpacking before we can contemplate the non-computable you. That word is algorithm. If not expressible as an algorithm, a task is not computable.,,,
Non-Computable You,,,
If biting into a lemon cannot be explained to a man without all his functioning senses, it certainly can’t be duplicated in an experiential way by AI using computer software.,,,
Qualia are a simple example of the many human attributes that escape algorithmic description. If you can’t formulate an algorithm explaining your lemon-biting experience, you can’t write software to duplicate the experience in the computer.,,
Qualia are not computable. They’re non-algorithmic.,,,"

He says it better than I could...

From the new article at https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-...s-why-not/ :

(an excerpt from Chapter 1 of the new book Non-Computable You by Robert J. Marks II):

I have noticed that book, and wondered what level it is at. I noticed that  Gregory Chaitin is mentioned - which is a very good sign.

Do you have that book - can you tell us more about it?

The following is a little screed on this that I did on another forum. I found that it is possible to plausibly (at least to me) find grounds or an argument with which to reconcile two seemingly fundamentally contradictory beliefs regarding the existence of God and just as incontrovertibly, clearly unjust human suffering. They are seen to be contradictory only from a lack of sufficient understanding and knowledge. 

While not disagreeing with you, I tend towards a different perspective or emphasis.

That is, someone comes up with a description of how they imagine God to be. Then after prolonged reflection and debate, there is a realisation that the description is wrong. The next step is to propose an alternative description of God. Repeat these steps ad libitum.

Which is to say, I don't attribute the problem only to insufficient knowledge, but instead to an incorrect initial hypothesis. These are not mutually exclusive positions, both are relevant in my view.