[ExI] What is Consciousness?

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Jason Resch via extropy-chat
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>…We see recurring themes of information, recursion, computation, and machines and logic. I think these are likely key to any formal definition of consciousness. …Jason

 

 

 

Jason, there is a reason I stopped worrying in the past coupla weeks that ChatGPT was going to cause the singularity.  I am a big Hofstader fan, read Escher Godel Bach twice, cover to cover, invested a lot of time into that marvelous work.  He convinced me that machine consciousness (or any other sentience or self-awareness) requires a type of recursion.  Hofstadter goes on at length about recursion and self-reference, the importance of Godel’s work to understanding ourselves.

 

I tried to convince myself that two or more ChatGPTs could train each other on their own time, which is a form of recursion and self-reference, and that process could perhaps spring into a human-level AGI with a will, with self-awareness, of all the stuff we think of as us.

 

Now after studying GPT^2 discussions and GPT^3 discussions, they all seem to devolve to nothing.  The technology I think is still coming for that process: two or more AIs training each other using background compute cycles, but I now don’t think ChatGPT is that technology or is capable of it.

 

If you know of examples of GPT-GPT discussions or GPT-any chatbot that became interesting, do share please.

 

That belief was behind my comment last week that ChatGPT is not really thinking, but rather is working language models.  

 

I currently don’t think ChatGPT is the technology capable of causing the singularity.  I am losing no sleep, not one minute of sleep over ChatGPT.

 

Oops, partially retract that last comment but in a good way: I am losing some sleep over ChatGPT, by staying up late to goof with it.  It is the coolest software tool to come along in a long time.

 

spike

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