Timothy Birdnow

An interesting discussion on Facebook. Dr. Roy Spencer observes:

I don't really follow this AI stuff, but I don't see how a computer that is programmed to respond like a human does, in any way, becomes "sentient". It is simply spitting back what it was programmed to say, no matter how complex the programming was. We anthropomorphize non-human objects just because they act in some way "human". That doesn't make them human.

google suspends engineer following claims an AI system had become "sentient"

Peter Hatgelakas responds:

Roy, awareness is a miracle for sure, but our minds are just biological-chemical computers that have become so sophisticated that they have given us self awareness. It may be possible someday that we may synthesize an equally sophisticated machine with similar logic circuitry to also become self-aware. In the book, "Dune”, mankind achieved this and it was almost to his doom. Thus a law was created that man was forbidden to create a thinking machine that mimicked his thought process. In place of that, a race of human computers were created.


Tim adds:

"awareness is a miracle for sure, but our minds are just biological-chemical computers that have become so sophisticated that they have given us self awareness." I have to disagree; we have no evidence proving that assertion. Roger Penrose argued the human brain does not work along any known principles of physics and there needed to be a whole new physics of the brain. Consciousness may or may not be tied to the base physical properties of the extremely complex neural net, but it may transcend it too. I would add there is a whole lot more going on in many ways. For example, there is evidence that information has mass.https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/583906/does-information-have-mass If that is so then consciousness may be more than we understand. We KNOW that the observer influences things at the quantum level. How is that if it is just a simple neural net that makes our consciousness? I'm not trying to be mystical here, but I think our understanding of the matter is woefully lacking. It has become an article of faith by many scientists that the material aspects of the brain explain all consciousness. I suspect this is spectacularly wrong, rather like old ideas of the aether or whatnot.

Peter adds:

AI is just a misnomer. AI, "artificial” in the sense it is an illusion”. The AI software is just more sophisticated logic, it is not self determinate, nor is it aware. Decisions are only made within the constraints of software engineering guidelines. I would say we are a few hundred years away from that development, and our current silicon based machines do not provide the kind of platform for it. Think about it, circuits have to be made on the fly. The hardware has to be dynamically driven, just as it is in a living organism.

Tim responds:

I agree. The brain rewires itself too, something I do not believe the current computers are capable of doing. Learning often involves the creation of new neural pathways that strengthen over time and use.

Tim adds:

A couple of points to ponder about this. First, the programmer said the machine was sentient because it started speaking in a language that nobody knew. Huh? We call that gibberish. When a human being is brain damaged and suffers from Broca's Aphasia we do not conclude they have become more intelligent - we conclude their brains are damaged. That is what this appears to be.And he said the machine was arguing with him like a child. Since when is arguing a sign of intelligence?

Roger Penrose said the brain does not follow the known laws of physics and he proposed we seek a new physics of the brain. It appears to transcend the sum of it's parts.

And there is so much we do not understand. We aren't even 100% sure the standard model for neurons is correct. There is an alternate theory that says there are solitons - sound waves - that are the primary driver of neural impulses. That would explain why opioids work, for example; the standard model can't explain that (by changing the density of the material in the nerves the soliton wave cannot propagate.)

That may or may not be true, but it shows how little we know. We do not know the brain is the sole repository of consciousness. There are certainly things in quantum physics that require an observer (and that suggests there is more to it than a Newtonian machine) and there is the evidence information has mass. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/583906/does-information-have-mass

The brain rewires itself, and when we learn we establish new neural pathways which are then strengthened through use. Neuroplasticity. There are people who have literally had half their brains removed and lived a normal life because what is left rewires itself into a whole new brain.

These machines are just that - static in physical structure, limited to what we put in them. I don't see any way they are comparable to ours.

Sadly, nursery rhymes and Disney have everyone anthropomorphizing everything. It's why we talk about "Gaia" and pretend the inanimate parts of the Earth are somehow alive and just like us. Disney has given us pantheism as our modern belief. And we apply it everywhere to everything these days. It's one of the things that are wrong with our modern society. We care more about some bait fish than we do people, and so California drains all the water away. They think "a boy id a dog is a fish is a goat is a bear".

But we aren't and a machine is not a man. I don't think it ever will be.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:25 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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