<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com></span><br></div><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;"><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br></span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">>> If you think consciousness follows necessarily from brain-like behavior then</span><br></div><div
class="y_msg_container"><font size="3">>> I suppose you must think some computers are already at least semi-conscious.</font><br><font size="3">>> I was joking the other day about how I would like sometimes to shoot my</font><br><font size="3">>> stand-alone chess computer, as it seems there is a cunning person inside it</font><br><font size="3">>> and he sometimes makes me angry. It certainly *behaves* as if it is</font><br><font size="3">>> conscious of me, of itself, and the game. Do you think it is actually dimly</font><br><font size="3">>> aware of its own existence?</font><br><br><font size="3">>> If not, at what point in the development conscious-like behavior do we</font><br><font size="3">>> decide suddenly to grant that an AI has real consciousness? How is it not</font><br><font size="3">>> arbitrary?</font><br><br><font size="3">>You have the same problem with biological systems. Do you
think a dog</font><br><font size="3">>is conscious? A cockroach? A bacterium? A water molecule?</font><br><br><font size="3">I don't consider it a problem. I am happy to suppose that </font>consciousness<font size="3"> is a matter of degree in biological systems. I think dogs are conscious, but not as conscious as humans. As we consider less complex organisms (non-mammals in particular), the level of consciousness begins to approach zero and probably reaches zero way before the level of the bacterium.</font></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3"><br></font></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3">Are you willing to say the same about computers? Is my chess computer at least semi-conscious? It sure behaves like it is, and you say behavior is the indicator of consciousness.</font></div><div class="y_msg_container"><font size="3"><br></font></div><div class="y_msg_container">Gordon<br></div><div
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