Artificial Consciousness Is Impossible

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

Do you mean, your article? By the rules of the forum, all discussions have to be conducted with no need to go outside.

 

As a former programmer, I don't know what it is. Is it a riddle?

Then how about you tell people like iNow to stop accusing me of repetition? After all, you've done some of that yourself.

It's not a riddle. A machine doesn't do anything "on its own."

[Genady]

1 minute ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Then how about you tell people like iNow to stop accusing me of repetition? After all, you've done some of that yourself.

It's not a riddle. A machine doesn't do anything "on its own."

Wait a minute. The whole wide field of "artificial devices" turns to be a narrow field of digital computers? Does the title of the thread actually mean, "Conscious computer is impossible"?

[AIkonoklazt]

5 minutes ago, Genady said:

Wait a minute. The whole wide field of "artificial devices" turns to be a narrow field of digital computers? Does the title of the thread actually mean, "Conscious computer is impossible"?

What "narrow"? It applies to any man-made artifact.

A catapult doesn't fling itself.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, AIkonoklazt said:

What "narrow"? It applies to any man-made artifact.

A catapult doesn't fling itself.

They are designed to be controlled. It is so on purpose.

[AIkonoklazt]

3 minutes ago, Genady said:

They are designed to be controlled. It is so on purpose.

Every artifact has a design. That's part of the control- It's in the making of it already.

[TheVat]

A rather strange turn this thread has taken.  I am hoping that toilet seats cannot ever be conscious.  

Anyway it seems like an argument against emergentism is being made... and its unintended consequence is that humans cannot possess agency, intentionality, or consciousness.

1. Consciousness cannot be accounted for by physical particles obeying mindless equations in accordance with natural laws. (such particle interactions are just machinery, like toilet seats or carburetors or thermostats)

2. Human beings seem to be made up of physical particles.

3. To the best of our knowledge, those particles obey mindless equations, without exception, and without a causal role for higher-order operations.  (no downward causation)

4.  Therefore, consciousness does not exist.  We are all zombies.

 

[AIkonoklazt]

4 minutes ago, TheVat said:

A rather strange turn this thread has taken.  I am hoping that toilet seats cannot ever be conscious.  

Anyway it seems like an argument against emergentism is being made... and its unintended consequence is that humans cannot possess agency, intentionality, or consciousness.

1. Consciousness cannot be accounted for by physical particles obeying mindless equations in accordance with natural laws. (such particle interactions are just machinery, like toilet seats or carburetors or thermostats)

2. Human beings seem to be made up of physical particles.

3. To the best of our knowledge, those particles obey mindless equations, without exception, and without a causal role for higher-order operations.  (no downward causation)

4.  Therefore, consciousness does not exist.  We are all zombies.

 

Physics doesn't account for intentionality.

There's no such thing as the color red. It exists absolutely nowhere except in your mind. Physicalism is old hat. https://www.extremetech.com/archive/49028-color-is-subjective

[Genady]

6 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Every artifact has a design. That's part of the control- It's in the making of it already.

If we want, we can design and build a machine that once started will go on by itself until its natural death.

 

5 minutes ago, TheVat said:

unintended consequence is that humans cannot possess agency, intentionality, or consciousness

They are all illusions. +1

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

If we want, we can design and build a machine that once started will go on by itself until its natural death.

 

They are all illusions. +1

It's not "by itself" - You programmed it to do so.

Nope, they're not illusory. That's just your copout. If you don't possess intentionality then you can't have this conversation because nothing on this page refers to anything at all.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, AIkonoklazt said:

It's not "by itself" - You programmed it to do so.

It does not have to be programmed. It can be all "hardware".

That's what I said, "we can design and build a machine" that behaves this way.

4 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

If you don't possess intentionality then you can't have this conversation because nothing on this page refers to anything at all.

This is a circular argument. Can you break it down?

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

It does not have to be programmed. It can be all "hardware".

That's what I said, "we can design and build a machine" that behaves this way.

This is a circular argument. Can you break it down?

You're a software guy so I can't blame you to be blind, but hardware is also programming.

I'm a microprocessor circuit layout engineer. Every microscopic positioning, even the lengths of routes, determines timing / delay / etc and thus the behavior. You also forgot microcode.

No it's not a "circular argument." Are your thoughts empty of any and all subject? Do your thoughts refer to anything at all? If so, that's intentionality.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, AIkonoklazt said:

You're a software guy so I can't blame you to be blind, but hardware is also programming.

I'm a microprocessor circuit layout engineer. Every microscopic positioning, even the lengths of routes, determines timing / delay / etc and thus the behavior. You also forgot microcode.

That just means that what you call "programming" is the same that I call "design." 

 

4 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

No it's not a "circular argument." Are your thoughts empty of any and all subject? Do your thoughts refer to anything at all? If so, that's intentionality.

Intentionality means reference and reference means intentionality. Sounds circular to me.

Anyway, my thoughts refer to concepts in my mind.

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

That just means that what you call "programming" is the same that I call "design." 

 

Intentionality means reference and reference means intentionality. Sounds circular to me.

Anyway, my thoughts refer to concepts in my mind.

Doesn't make one iota of difference. You are still determining behavior. There isn't any volition inherent in the machine.

No it's not "circular". Intentionality means "the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties, and states of affairs.”

Okay, so your thoughts do refer to something after all. Congrats- that's not an "illusion"; That enables you to have thoughts.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, AIkonoklazt said:

You are still determining behavior.

No, I am determining the design. The resulting behavior can be unpredictable. The only way to determine the behavior in such designs is to run the machine or to imitate its running, and to watch what happens.

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

No, I am determining the design. The resulting behavior can be unpredictable. The only way to determine the behavior in such designs is to run the machine or to imitate its running, and to watch what happens.

Of course it's predictable, otherwise there's no such thing as "debug".

[Genady]

Just now, AIkonoklazt said:

Of course it's predictable, otherwise there's no such thing as "debug".

Take a simple program that calculates the number pi. It is impossible to predict what it will produce for the N-th digit without actually running it until it produces that digit. 

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

Take a simple program that calculates the number pi. It is impossible to predict what it will produce for the N-th digit without actually running it until it produces that digit. 

There were always programs that calculates pi. The expected result is that result. There are several formulas that can be used to calculate the nth digit of pi. One such formula is the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe (BBP) formula.

[Genady]

1 minute ago, AIkonoklazt said:

There were always programs that calculates pi. The expected result is that result. There are several formulas that can be used to calculate the nth digit of pi. One such formula is the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe (BBP) formula.

Look at that formula. It has an infinite sum. It is not kind of formula that you can plug in N and get the N-th digit back. To get the N-th digit you have to run that sum calculation long enough and only then see the answer. You cannot predict the answer any other way.

[AIkonoklazt]

2 minutes ago, Genady said:

Look at that formula. It has an infinite sum. It is not kind of formula that you can plug in N and get the N-th digit back. To get the N-th digit you have to run that sum calculation long enough and only then see the answer. You cannot predict the answer any other way.

...and that shows volition how?

[Genady]

4 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

...and that shows volition how?

That shows that "I am determining the design. The resulting behavior can be unpredictable."

I don't think the word "volition" has been in the discussion so far. Other words, yes, but not this one.

[AIkonoklazt]

Just now, Genady said:

That shows that "I am determining the design. The resulting behavior can be unpredictable."

I don't think the word "volition" has been in the discussion so far. Other words, yes, but not this one.

It's only unpredictable in the sense of the final result. When you watch all the digits come out, what do you see? The expected pattern that was calculated before.

If it comes out wrong in the end, then you debug.

Again, still doesn't show anything about "doing things by itself." You stuck the program for Pi in.

[Genady]

2 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

It's only unpredictable in the sense of the final result. When you watch all the digits come out, what do you see? The expected pattern that was calculated before.

If it comes out wrong in the end, then you debug.

Again, still doesn't show anything about "doing things by itself." You stuck the program for Pi in.

Now I imagine billions of programs. Not for calculating pi, but for acting in billions of situations in my physical and social environment, each one unpredictable until it actually happens. I get an adult human.

[AIkonoklazt]

2 minutes ago, Genady said:

Now I imagine billions of programs. Not for calculating pi, but for acting in billions of situations in my physical and social environment, each one unpredictable until it actually happens. I get an adult human.

No you have a crappy robot that hasn't been validated property.

See those Teslas that crashed into stationary vehicles? Bad validation.

There's a misrepresentation here.

Intermediate results are being ignored. You have an entire series of predictable results, until you come upon a bad result. Then you debug. You don't simply place the evaluation of predictability at the end of an infinite chain. Okay, so I don't know where this car is going to be at like a year from now. So that car has a mind of its own? How about shorten that to 6 seconds? 6 milliseconds?

Also, it doesn't matter how many programs are there. There were placed there. You have a bazillion programs and suddenly they came from nowhere? Really?

[GrahamF]

I'd first want to clarify what exactly consciousness is, and how it functions. For starters, are we simply assuming that every single human has consciousness? Studies have found that a percentage of everyday people have no internal dialogue, and there are people with mental disorders such as autism or down syndrome or psychopathy that have severely restricted the functionality of their minds. Is it possible to consider that some people with even more severe disorders or illnesses may not qualify as having consciousness? Are we conflating the concept of consciousness with the concept of a soul, and rejecting the notion that our minds are not as mystical as we wish?

 

We know that various parts of the brain are responsible for different tasks, and most of those can be broken down to functions an AI can achieve. Free will can be broken down to systems that determine priority between various concurrently running objectives, and systems that determine the priority of immediate and long-term solutions to those objectives.

 

We could eventually rely on empirical observations. There are projects attempting to create a digital simulation of a human brain and all its neural connections. They're currently limited to simulating only a small number of neurons, but as technology progresses, they can build more powerful supercomputers capable of simulating even more. If they one day get to the point where they can fully emulate a human nervous system in its entirety and it can talk and think and act like a conscious human, that would be a solid piece of evidence then.

Edited September 15, 2023 by GrahamF

[wtf]

1 hour ago, GrahamF said:

If they one day get to the point where they can fully emulate a human nervous system in its entirety and it can talk and think and act like a conscious human, that would be a solid piece of evidence then.

Evidence of what? Is there a paragraph missing? I didn't see a thesis being proposed.

In any event, your thought experiment is subject to the gravity argument. Running a simulation of gravity in a computer doesn't attract nearby bowling balls (beyond the attraction caused by the mass of the computer itself). Nor would a simulation of a brain necessarily have a mind. We already have pretty good chatbots, nobody thinks they're conscious.

There's another commonly refuted point in your argument. We don't make flying machines by duplicating birds molecule by molecule. Airplanes fly by different mechanisms than birds do; and it's likely that emulating a brain part by part is not the way to implement artificial consciousness. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by wtf