alt Hacker NewsWhether AI is conscious or not is independent of the social acceptance of the idea, unless you believe in thoroughly discredited and quite radical forms of social constructionism.
In fact, if you stop talking about consciousness, and go through all the various aspects of consciousness, the whole debate gets very interesting. There are various ways in which AI is very clearly conscious or exhibits / involves phenomena that are clearly involved in certain aspects of conscious, other ways in which AI already very clearly is missing other aspects, and then again some remaining ways which are unclear, and which may forever remain unclear.
Being clear about the different ways in which AI is, isn't, and might be conscious is a useful discussion and we still need to be having it.
EDIT: An analogy would be to recent shifts in whether or not lobsters feel pain, and so by extension, the ways in and degree to which lobsters can be considered consciousness. Research and debate has shifted opinions enough for parts of Europe to regulate certain methods of preparing them. But the ways in which lobsters are conscious and/or feel pain is an objective fact, regardless of what we decide.
>Whether AI is conscious or not is independent of the social acceptance of the idea, unless you believe in thoroughly discredited and quite radical forms of social constructionism.
Are you saying I need to have certain beliefs (discredited by someone) for something objective to be true or false? That sounds like social acceptance of an idea.
>There are various ways in which AI is very clearly conscious or exhibits / involves phenomena that are clearly involved in certain aspects of conscious
Which ways and how can it be demonstrated experimentally?
>An analogy would be to recent shifts in whether or not lobsters feel pain, and so by extension, the ways in and degree to which lobsters can be considered consciousness. Research and debate has shifted opinions enough for parts of Europe to regulate certain methods of preparing them. But the ways in which lobsters are conscious and/or feel pain is an objective fact, regardless of what we decide.
That's not what the consciousness debate I see is about. The signal propagates and causes the reaction, but do they feel pain? What is the threshold? Is it just the complexity of the state? How complex it needs to be?