[ExI] Gemini 2.5 Flash AI Deep Research Example

[Jason Resch]

Stuart,

While I agree that Rice's theorem means we cannot (in all cases) determine
whether or not a program will behave consciously given only it's code, I
don't think this implies we are forever unable to recognize conscious
processes when we encounter them.

Rice's theorem is applicable for a situation like this:

main() {
    findGoldbachCounterexample();
    performConsciousProcess();
}

Rice's theorem implies there may be functions, like
findGoldbachConjecture() which we cannot predict the behavior of, or if
they ever return anything, and therefore, we cannot, by inspecting this
code, ever know if this program will ever behave in a way that appears
conscious.

But Rice's theorem doesn't say if a program reaches the state of
performConsciousProcess() that we won't be able to tell. In fact, it is
common in program debugging to set a "break point" that alerts a programmer
when a certain state or line is reached by a program.

Finally, I would say we don't even need to get into the code. If a guided
missile makes the correct course corrections each time a target performs an
evasive maneuver, then each time it happens we gather evidence that the
missile is not behaving randomly but rather something within the process of
the missile's guidance system is aware of the target. We can rapidly reach
a very high confidence of this fact.

For example, if there was only 1 correct course correction for every 99
invalid ones, then making the correct one by purse chance would be only 1%.
After witnessing three, the odds of them all happening by chance would be 1
in a million. We can then, after witnessing such behavior be 99.9999%
confident that the guided missile is aware of something. Or in other words:
that it is conscious of something.


Jason


On Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 11:57 AM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 2025-09-20 08:47, BillK via extropy-chat wrote:
> > After my trial of Gemini 2.5 Pro on the consciousness problem, I
> > discovered that there is also Gemini 2.5 Flash with a Deep Reasoning
> > option, which can search the internet.
> > So I asked the same question. Flash ran for several minutes as it
> > scanned through all the options and constructed the report.
> > The result really impressed me. I have included everything below, so
> > you can see what Gemini Flash Deep Reasoning did.
> > BillK
> >
> > Question:
> > Does Rice's Theorem mean that we can never decide whether an AI
> > computer system is truly conscious or just imitating conscious
> > behavior?
> >
> > Gemini 2.5 Flash Deep Reasoning:
> > 6. CONCLUSION
> >
> > In summary, the question of whether Rice's Theorem means we can never
> > decide if an AI is truly conscious is based on a premise that, while
> > insightful, ultimately misapplies the theorem. The analysis in this
> > report demonstrates that "being conscious" is not a semantic property
> > of a program's output and is therefore not subject to the theorem's
> > constraints. The true undecidability stems from a deeper
> > epistemological problem: our lack of a universal, objective theory of
> > consciousness. This is compounded by the fact that consciousness may
> > not be a purely computational phenomenon, as argued by proponents of
> > non-computational and embodied theories of mind.
> >
> > The profound philosophical and practical implication of this is that
> > the problem of AI consciousness is not a computational one that can be
> > solved by a clever algorithm. Instead, it is a fundamental
> > epistemological challenge that reflects the limits of our own ability
> > to know. The question of AI consciousness, in this light, serves as a
> > powerful mirror. Rice's Theorem's formal limits on what a program can
> > know about another program reflect our own limitations in knowing the
> > internal, subjective states of other minds, whether they are human or
> > artificial. The undecidability is not a bug in the code of reality but
> > a profound feature of the deepest mysteries of the mind and its
> > relationship to the physical world.
>
> While interesting, Gemini's analysis is pointing out flaws in the
> definition of consciousness. If you change consciousness to
> intelligence, then Rice's Theorem DOES apply and the intelligence of an
> AI is undecidable. Here is ChatGPT's take on the question.
> --------------
>
> What is a semantic property of a computer program?
> ChatGPT said:
>
> A semantic property of a computer program is a property that depends on
> the meaning (semantics) of the program rather than just its syntax
> (form).
>
> Syntactic properties are about how the program looks (e.g., does it
> compile, does it use semicolons correctly, is a variable declared?).
>
> Semantic properties are about what the program actually does when
> executed (its behavior, input-output relation, or effect on
> memory/state).
>
> Examples of semantic properties:
>
> Whether a program always halts on all inputs (the halting problem).
>
> Whether two programs are functionally equivalent (produce the same
> outputs for all inputs).
>
> Whether a program computes a total function (produces an output for
> every possible input).
>
> Whether a variable is always initialized before being used.
>
> Whether a given line of code is ever executed (reachability).
>
> Formally, in computability theory, semantic properties are those that
> depend on the function computed by the program, not just its textual
> structure. This is tied to Rice’s theorem, which says that all
> non-trivial semantic properties of programs are undecidable in general.
>
> Would you like me to contrast this with syntactic properties in a
> side-by-side table so it’s clearer?
>
> You said:
> Is the intelligence of a large language model a semantic property?
> ChatGPT said:
>
> That’s a subtle and interesting question. Let’s break it down carefully.
>
> 1. What a semantic property means
>
> In computer science theory, a semantic property of a program is one that
> depends on the function (or behavior) the program computes, not on its
> source code structure.
>
> Example: “This program always halts” → semantic.
>
> Example: “This program contains more than 10 if statements” → syntactic.
>
> 2. What "intelligence" means here
>
> When people talk about the intelligence of a large language model (LLM),
> they usually mean something like:
>
> its ability to generalize, reason, or solve problems across a range of
> tasks,
>
> its ability to produce outputs that align with human-like understanding,
>
> or, more formally, its competence on benchmarks and tasks that reflect
> “intelligent behavior.”
>
> This depends on what the model does in response to inputs (i.e., its
> behavior), not just its internal architecture or token statistics.
>
> 3. Intelligence as a semantic property
>
>  From that lens:
>
> The architecture size of an LLM (number of parameters, layers, etc.) →
> syntactic property.
>
> The emergent ability to do arithmetic or reasoning → semantic property,
> because it depends on the input-output function realized by the trained
> model.
>
> So yes: the “intelligence” of a large language model—understood as its
> ability to generate coherent, problem-solving outputs—is a semantic
> property of the program.
>
> �� One catch: Rice’s theorem tells us that all nontrivial semantic
> properties are undecidable in general. That means there can’t be a
> universal algorithm that, given the weights of any LLM, decides whether
> it is “intelligent” or not. Intelligence must be empirically tested via
> behavior, not mechanically deduced from code alone.
>
> Would you like me to phrase this in the language of Rice’s theorem
> explicitly, showing how “intelligence” falls under its scope?
>
> You said:
> So the intelligence of an AI cannot be decided based its programming or
> neural weights?
> ChatGPT said:
>
> Exactly — you’ve got it.
>
> Here’s why:
>
> 1. Programming and weights = syntax
>
> The source code of the AI (the architecture, the training loop, etc.)
> and the final set of neural network weights are the syntactic
> description of the program. They tell you how the system is built, but
> not necessarily what function it computes in practice.
>
> 2. Intelligence = semantic property
>
> Whether the AI shows “intelligence” (e.g., can solve reasoning problems,
> generalize, converse coherently, write code) depends on its behavior
> when given inputs — the actual input–output mapping realized by those
> weights. That makes it a semantic property.
>
> 3. Rice’s theorem perspective
>
> Rice’s theorem says: any non-trivial semantic property of programs is
> undecidable.
>
> “Non-trivial” means: not true of all programs, not false of all
> programs.
>
> “Intelligence” is clearly non-trivial — some programs (LLMs) show it,
> others (a program that just prints hello) don’t.
>
> Therefore, there is no general algorithm that can look at a program’s
> code or weights and decide once and for all whether it is “intelligent.”
>
> 4. What we can do
>
> We can empirically test a system by feeding it inputs and checking its
> outputs.
>
> We can approximate measures of intelligence with benchmarks, complexity
> analysis, or capability evaluations.
>
> But we cannot “read off” intelligence from raw weights or source code in
> a universal, guaranteed way.
>
> ✅ So the conclusion: the intelligence of an AI cannot be decided from
> its programming or weights alone — only from the semantics (behavior)
> that emerges when it runs.
> --------------------------------------
>
> So there is no way to know how smart an AI is going to be until your run
> it and test it empirically. This has implications for super
> intelligence, recursive self improvement, and the singularity.
>
> Stuart LaForge
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