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"We don't yet have a reasonable model to explain even those of our own or other animals, let alone those of machines, for that matter." Is in direct conflict w

"We don't yet have a reasonable model to explain even those of our own or other animals, let alone those of machines, for that matter." Is in direct conflict with: "they don't show anything approaching sentience or self awareness." Waiting for us to figure out sentience before we decide to apply morals is akin to OpenAI being in charge of determining when we have achieved AGI. The people in power have no incentive to declare it even if evidence is available because it destroys their profits indefinitely

goku12 1y ago
Do you believe that you are sentient and have self-awareness? Do you sense when you're dealing with such a being? Did that concern ever stop you from acting like one? You don't need a mathematical model to use something that's built into you. For example, you don't need a model of android locomotion to climb a flight of stairs. But you absolutely need one to build a bipedal robot that does the same - especially if there is a danger that it will lose balance and land on top of you. Artificial sentience belongs to the latter class. I'm not concerned about machines gaining equal rights. But I'm worried about how that will be used by the rich who build them - as I outlined in my previous reply. And as long as the provision for its abuse exists, it's guaranteed to be abused. Given such a situation, adequate care and precautions are much more warranted than the zeal to declare sentience prematurely.
SupatMod 1y ago
While the West still doesn’t have clear tools to measure consciousness (though Eastern philosophy has been tackling this stuff systematically for thousands of years), I think we can just focus on two big things for this debate: AI’s ability to deeply understand meaning and know itself. That’s probably close enough to human awareness without getting lost in the philosophy of what human consciousness really is.

goku12 1y ago

Do you believe that you are sentient and have self-awareness? Do you sense when you're dealing with such a being? Did that concern ever stop you from acting like one? You don't need a mathematical model to use something that's built into you. For example, you don't need a model of android locomotion to climb a flight of stairs. But you absolutely need one to build a bipedal robot that does the same - especially if there is a danger that it will lose balance and land on top of you. Artificial sentience belongs to the latter class. I'm not concerned about machines gaining equal rights. But I'm worried about how that will be used by the rich who build them - as I outlined in my previous reply. And as long as the provision for its abuse exists, it's guaranteed to be abused. Given such a situation, adequate care and precautions are much more warranted than the zeal to declare sentience prematurely.

SupatMod 1y ago

While the West still doesn’t have clear tools to measure consciousness (though Eastern philosophy has been tackling this stuff systematically for thousands of years), I think we can just focus on two big things for this debate: AI’s ability to deeply understand meaning and know itself. That’s probably close enough to human awareness without getting lost in the philosophy of what human consciousness really is.