[ExI] People often think their chatbot is alive

[BillK]

On Thu, 7 Jul 2022 at 22:40, Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> Sorry to elaborate, for example, read Blake Lemoine's (the engineer that claimed LaMDA is conscious) latest Medium article
>
> https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/who-should-make-decisions-about-ai-33f19e9fe5cc
>
> Independently from his conclusion about LaMDA awareness, the arguments raised in the article are very serious and profound. Of course, the issue of how to decide if AI is aware is not new (famously Turing among others came up with possible tests and so on) but I don't remember seeing anywhere a serious discussion, in particular, one that caught the public attention and imagination, of who exactly would make that decision and what it should be done if the decision is that indeed we are dealing with a conscious entity.
> Also, the topic of AI rights is not new and Kurzweil even had a fictionalized video on this topic. But it was all hypothetical and sci-fi like so it didn't really create serious discussions and debates.
> The fact somebody, right or wrong, came out, with some personal consequences in their own lives, claiming that in fact, we have created the first conscious AI changed all this and made it real.
> So I think people like us that have been interested for years on these ideas, and in fact, these topics and issues are part of our identity in a way, should be the last ones dismissing this discussion (for example with sentences like "people often think their chatbot is alive" that is the title of this thread) as something ridiculous and based on some delusion.
> Giovanni
>
> _______________________________________________


The title of this thread is not dismissing the serious discussion of AI.
It is simply stating a fact that nowadays the chatbots are so cleverly
designed that when the general public comes into contact with them,
they think they have many of the attributes of a real person.
e.g. robot companions for the aged or disabled.


BillK