[extropy-chat] A quick AGI question

[A B]

Hi Colin,
   
  Thank you for responding. Even though I have only the most preliminary and limited understanding of AI, the information you have provided certainly sounds good to me (FWIW) :-)  But, I think that I managed to articulate my question in a sufficiently obscure way, that I think it's intent may have been lost. I'll try to rearrange the question the best I can, with the limited understanding that I have.
   
  It seems to me that the human brain as a physical object, can and does produce intelligence and consciousness without what is commonly understood to be software. "Software" is just an invented human noun, typically used to describe computer code that may be recorded in any number of ways (eg. on a hard drive, within a program, or scribbled with crayon on a piece of paper). IOW, the algorithms that produce human intelligence seem to be supplied solely by the physical arrangement of the hardware of the brain. So my question is: Is the premise behind AGI (or really any software program, I suppose) that the active (running) software *pre-specifies* the physical arrangement of the hardware (eg. by specifying which transistors are active at what time) - and that this newly pre-specified hardware arrangement is what then "produces" the mind, moment by moment? IOW, isn't it ultimately the *hardware* that produces the mind, even though it is the software which is dictating the
 physical arrangement of the hardware, moment by moment?
   
  Sorry if this question is still clear as mud, I'm having a hard time of it.
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich     
   
  
Colin Geoffrey Hales <c.hales at pgrad.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
  > Hey y'all,
>
> I'm trying to develop a personal understanding of the (very)
elementary
> theory behind AGI, such that a mere mortal like me can understand
intuitively, without having to digest mountains of literature. So I have a
basic question, that I'll state using informal (and I'm sure
> inaccurate) terminology, but I hope I can get the idea across all the
same.
>
> Q) If I understand correctly, the algorithms responsible for human
> thought are supplied by the physical arrangement of the "active"
hardware of the human brain. So, is the premise behind AGI that the active
*software* functions by pre-specifying the physical arrangement of the
hardware (by specifying which transistors are active at what time for
example) and that the AGI "thoughts" follow from this point onward? In
other words, the actual "thoughts" of the AGI are always secondary to the
hardware arrangement supplied by the software, and that in both cases it
is *ultimately* the *hardware* that results in the mind?
>
> Is this an accurate basic understanding, or is this all just bass -
> ackwards?
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Jeffrey Herrlich
>

Hi Jeffrey,

I'm not sure I have translated Jeff-speak into Colin-speak correctly, but
I think your question may be answered as follows:

Currently all artificial intelligence projects (AI and AGI) are based on
software and are developed/operate without any knowledge of the physics of
subjective experience or its role in learning, knowledge and intelligence.
To have this information would require a solution to the physics of
phenomenal consciousness (the so-called 'hard problem'). That physics is
unknown. It is a property of brain material currently without any
explanatory basis in science. Nor has its role been accounted for.

So, whatever abstractions are enacted computationally in AI or AGI project
software, currently the intelligence that results has either

a) no internal life
b) the internal life of a hot electrically noisy silicon rock (the
computer hardware/substrate)
c) an internal life that is related to the software in some way that the
engineers involved cannot predict or have no idea about.

and in all cases a role that is assumed irrelevent without a justified
reason, for there's nothing else you can do whilst the physics remains
mysterious.

I hope that covers it.
I think it does...

regards,

Colin Hales

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