David J. Atkinson

@Feathercrown We are not ready, in the sense of thinking about the question thoroughly, but we don’t get to choose when it comes. I am hopeful, however, seeing the progress humanity has made in recognizing intelligence and self-awareness in other species. The human-centric bias is on the wane.

@Feathercrown Maybe all you need are the right ingredients? I don’t think so. There must be a recipe. Human ontogenesis proceeds according to a process specified in our genes, modified a bit by the developmental environment. We don’t fully understand that process completely (AFIK) but there are no intrinsic obstacles. #Mind emerges at some point.

You are right about the question of recognizing consciousness. People are predisposed to attribute life, intentionality, and all kinds of “mental states” to all kinds of inanimate objects given the flimsiest evidence. The more something resembles ourselves, the quicker and deeper the belief is held.

I’m not sure consciousness is even required. It may be an illusion. It may be an artifact. It does not matter to the prospect of extremely powerful #AI systems. I fully expect models to assert consciousness and make demands on that basis. True or false, what do we do in that situation?

@Aceticon @technology In the US it is called HIPAA.

Among other things the a law directs ensuring and protecting the privacy of an individual’s “PII”, or Personally Identifiable Information, which includes but is not limited to health and medical information. Basically, any person or entity that “touches” PII is required to be certified by the National Institute of Health. Training is online. Depending on your role,the training might be customized. For example, I am certified for scientific studies involving human subjects. Only people and entities that receive any Federal funding are required to follow HIPAA. The penalty for even one violation may include loss of Federal funding forever so those with health-related research take it especially seriously. NIH has a hotline to report violations and they DO investigate.

@DarkDarkHouse Take care of the downside and the upside will take care of itself.

@Feathercrown @artISAn #consciousness #AI #brain #neuroscience #computer #functionalism

Even a “complete simulation” of a fruit fly brain would be no more than an approximation. I think you mean “emulation” and I agree.

The simple reason is that we do not know scientifically all of necessary and sufficient functional mechanisms of consciousness, nor consciousness’s functional role in “intelligence” (which we also have trouble describing). If, and only if we we did, we would (given the right tools) be able to replicate it functionally (in principle) using computation.

Specifically, I refer to a Universal Turing Machine (UTM) and the Church-Turing Thesis (the foundational principle of all computer science). EVEN THEN, there are computational problems that cannot be proved to be solvable by a UTM (e.g., the Halting Problem) and we don’t know what, if any role they play in consciousness.

Bottom line for me: we are going to need a revolution in each of the sciences of psychoneurophysics, mathematical logic, and theory of computation before we can begin to talk about replicating consciousness in a machine.