A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Sunday66
Posts: 137
Joined: April 10th, 2022, 4:44 pm

A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Sunday66 »

Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
Sunday66
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Sunday66 »

Some people believe that humans have a soul which was created by God and connects us to God. Thus only God can think, only the soul can think.
The reaction to AI is that it has no soul and therefore cannot think.
AverageBozo
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by AverageBozo »

Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
(The link is broken. See if you can create it again please.)
Sunday66
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Joined: April 10th, 2022, 4:44 pm

Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Sunday66 »

AverageBozo wrote: August 5th, 2022, 4:19 pm
Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
(The link is broken. See if you can create it again please.)
cannot
stevie
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by stevie »

Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.
It's the same with humans: Humans can’t think or feel, despite what the human common sense wants to believe.
mankind ... must act and reason and believe; though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them [Hume]
JDBowden
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by JDBowden »

stevie wrote: August 5th, 2022, 8:14 pm
Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.
It's the same with humans: Humans can’t think or feel, despite what the human common sense wants to believe.
What? So if you are chopping onion and you slice off a finger clean off and blood splatters everywhere, you will not feel it?
stevie
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by stevie »

JDBowden wrote: August 6th, 2022, 3:04 pm
stevie wrote: August 5th, 2022, 8:14 pm
Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.
It's the same with humans: Humans can’t think or feel, despite what the human common sense wants to believe.
What? So if you are chopping onion and you slice off a finger clean off and blood splatters everywhere, you will not feel it?
Read again "It's the same with humans: Humans can’t think or feel, despite what the human common sense wants to believe."
mankind ... must act and reason and believe; though they are not able, by their most diligent enquiry, to satisfy themselves concerning the foundation of these operations, or to remove the objections, which may be raised against them [Hume]
Gertie
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Gertie »

Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
Is this about the bloke who thinks the Google chatbox program (Lamda) he was working on has phenomenal experience?

He believes that Lamda has conscious experience because through his convos with it Lamda responds as we'd expect it respond if it had experience, ie that it would pass the Turing test.

Unfortunately because we don't understand the necessary and sufficient conditions for conscious experience, and it's private and can't be observed and detected by others, we have to resort to something like the Turing test (which basically tests similarity to us experiencing beings) to test for it. It's not reliable, but perhaps the best we can do is say the Turing test is indicative, for now at least.

A significant issue with Lamda imo is it's a learning chatbox program, designed to interact with humans in a human way, and fed by a wealth of internet examples of human knowledge and examples of how humans think and feel. So it being able to convincingly imitate a human it's talking to another human is an aspect of what it's designed and equipped to do, as part of its ability to answer questions better and its user-friendliness.

All that said the transcripts are intriguing!

https://insiderpaper.com/transcript-int ... bot-lamda/
Sunday66
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Joined: April 10th, 2022, 4:44 pm

Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Sunday66 »

Gertie wrote: August 7th, 2022, 7:54 am
Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
Is this about the bloke who thinks the Google chatbox program (Lamda) he was working on has phenomenal experience?

He believes that Lamda has conscious experience because through his convos with it Lamda responds as we'd expect it respond if it had experience, ie that it would pass the Turing test.

Unfortunately because we don't understand the necessary and sufficient conditions for conscious experience, and it's private and can't be observed and detected by others, we have to resort to something like the Turing test (which basically tests similarity to us experiencing beings) to test for it. It's not reliable, but perhaps the best we can do is say the Turing test is indicative, for now at least.

A significant issue with Lamda imo is it's a learning chatbox program, designed to interact with humans in a human way, and fed by a wealth of internet examples of human knowledge and examples of how humans think and feel. So it being able to convincingly imitate a human it's talking to another human is an aspect of what it's designed and equipped to do, as part of its ability to answer questions better and its user-friendliness.

All that said the transcripts are intriguing!

https://insiderpaper.com/transcript-int ... bot-lamda/
One of the things mentioned in the article. AI has passed the Turing test ("the imitation game") long ago.
BrianKingofTrolls
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by BrianKingofTrolls »

Correct, AI is running on programming, it has no subjective experience.

The AI thing is blowing up these days, but people miss a critical point: AI has no desire. All life is driven by the in-built desires or hungers. We need to eat to survive, otherwise we have the subjective experience of starvation, fear, and ultimately death. This is what determines all our behaviors.

AI has none of these things. It has no objective experience of fear; if you leave an AI sitting there, it will not worry about it's power draining or its body rusting way unless you program it to worry. Even if you did, its merely the appearance of worry.

Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind, is arguably the greatest AI engineer in the world. He is the creator of the AI that beat the Go and Chess world champions, achieved nuclear fusion plasma control, and solved protein folding. He conclusively states in a recent interview that no sentient AI exists; its a tool, basically a fancy hammer, nothing more.
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Meta Island
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Meta Island »

Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
For a robot to feel, it would need a self-image and a program to constantly monitor the condition of that self-image. Then reinforcement/growth of that self-image (for example, additional programmed abilities) would imitate positive feelings of power as diagnosed by the monitor, deletions from that self-image would imitate negative feelings of lessened power. Sounds vaguely familiar.
“Never does Nature say one thing and Wisdom another.” - Juvenal
Sunday66
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Sunday66 »

Meta Island wrote: September 29th, 2022, 9:20 am
Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
For a robot to feel, it would need a self-image and a program to constantly monitor the condition of that self-image. Then reinforcement/growth of that self-image (for example, additional programmed abilities) would imitate positive feelings of power as diagnosed by the monitor, deletions from that self-image would imitate negative feelings of lessened power. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Why would an AI system need human feeling in order to operate?
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Meta Island
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Re: A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Post by Meta Island »

Sunday66 wrote: September 29th, 2022, 1:00 pm
Meta Island wrote: September 29th, 2022, 9:20 am
Sunday66 wrote: August 5th, 2022, 1:57 pm Robots can’t think or feel, despite what the researchers who build them want to believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/t...nt-google.html

I do not agree with this, but the article is worthwhile.

This is a good definition of intelligence, from the article: “The ability to learn — the ability to take in new context and solve something in a new way — is intelligence.”
For a robot to feel, it would need a self-image and a program to constantly monitor the condition of that self-image. Then reinforcement/growth of that self-image (for example, additional programmed abilities) would imitate positive feelings of power as diagnosed by the monitor, deletions from that self-image would imitate negative feelings of lessened power. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Why would an AI system need human feeling in order to operate?
Hello Sunday66, I was just offering an answer as to whether a robot could be built with the ability to feel by defining feelings as states of power. I didn't mean to imply that a typical AI system needed to have feelings in order to operate.

My laptop’s OS monitors the laptop’s battery. When the battery runs low it dims my screen and pops up warnings - in terms of power, it is announcing that it needs (is hungry for) more power or the laptop will shut down, but that doesn't qualify as a feeling AI as you are using the term.
“Never does Nature say one thing and Wisdom another.” - Juvenal
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