<div dir="auto">Succinctly and well put Ben.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">To Gordon: I'm willing to entertain arguments why you think our brains are privileged in some way that artificial neural networks are not (and can never overcome).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Arguments from authority (appealing to what other linguists or what ChatGPT say) hold little sway and I don't think will change any minds.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A few prominent critics that deny the possibility of computer generated consciousness usually fallen into one of two camps:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">1. Non-computable physics: what the brain does is uncomputable, there are infinities, continuities, real numbers, true randomness, quantum weirdness, quantum gravity, wave function collapse, hyper computation, etc. which somehow play a fundamental and irreplaceable role in how the brain works and no Turing machine, no matter how much memory or time it is given can ever emulate this process. (E.g., Roger Penrose)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2. Weak-AI theorists: What the brain does is computable, but even a perfect emulation or simulation of the brain would never be conscious. It's not the right stuff. A simulation of lactation won't provide you any milk so why should a simulation of a brain give you consciousness? This is sometimes called biological naturalism. (E.g., John Searle)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">From your arguments you seem to be more aligned with camp 2, is that a fair assessment? Do you think the brain is Turing emulable, or at least simulable to a sufficient level of accuracy that no one could tell any difference in it's behavior?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The problem with camp 1 is no one can show anything in physics, chemistry, or biology that's uncomputable or explain how or why it could make a difference or be important. Moreover we have realistic models of biological brains and can accurately simulate small parts of them without relying on unknown or speculative physics.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The problem with camp 2 is that it opens the door to philosophical zombies: putative beings who in all ways act, speak, and behave exactly as if they are conscious humans, but lacking any awareness or inner life. This sounds fine at first but when you dig into the concept it leads to absurdities:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Imagine a whole Earth populated by such beings. They would still talk about their consciousness, still discuss it in email lists, still argue whether their AIs are conscious, they would write whole books on consciousness and come up with arguments like dancing qualia as and neural substitution, they would even come up with the idea of zombies and argue about their logical possibility, all the while every one of them denying that they are zombies. No, on the contrary, each of them claims to have a rich inner life, filled with joys, sorrows, pains, beautiful sunsets, and favorite foods and colors, despite that none of them actually see, taste or feel anything. They can speak at length of their own sensations of pain and how it makes them feel. From where does this information come? Some of these zombies even choose euthanasia over a life of pain (which none of them really feel). What drives them to do that when these zombies experience no pain? Why do these zombies still claim to be conscious? When we analyze their brains we see they aren't using the circuits involved with lying, they actually "believe" they are conscious, (if zombies are such things that you will allow to have beliefs.)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Between zombies and machine consciousness, I have to say I find the concept of zombies slightly more dubious. But that's just my personal opinion.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Jason </div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 1, 2023, 9:35 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
On 01/04/2023 13:43, Gordon Swobe wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Unlike
these virtual LLMs, we have access also to the referents in the
world that give the words in language meaning. </blockquote>
<br>
<br>
I don't understand why this argument keeps recurring, despite having
been demolished more than once.<br>
<br>
Here's another take on it:<br>
<br>
The LLMs like ChatGPT only have access to symbols that associate
with further distant sources (articles on the internet, text input
from users, etc.).<br>
<br>
Our brains only have access to symbols that associate with further
distant sources (sensory inputs and memories, including articles on
the internet and text (for quite a few things, articles on the
internet and text are the <i>only</i> sources)).<br>
<br>
The meanings of these symbols is created within the respective
systems (computers and brains) by their associations and
cross-associations with other symbols that have their own sources.<br>
<br>
An example: My knowledge of dinosaurs comes from words, pictures,
speech, articles on the internet, and their interaction with other
information that I have about the world. I've never met a dinosaur.
But I have a pretty firm idea of what, for example, an ankylosaur
would have been like. I may be wrong, of course, there are things
that we still don't know about ankylosaurs. But that doesn't matter.
I have a meaningful model of one in my head, by virtue of a symbol
being linked to other symbols, that are in turn linked... (insert a
few thousand neural links here) And none of them are from my direct
experience of an ankylosaur.<br>
<br>
I fail to see any significant difference between my brain and an
LLM, in these respects, except that my brain is made of water and
fats and proteins, and an LLM isn't. And perhaps the degree of
complexity and number of the links. Perhaps. (That's something
subject to constant change, and if they don't already, these AI
systems will soon outstrip the human brain in the number and
complexity of links).<br>
<br>
We both do have access to the 'referents in the world', indirectly.
It's more like the references within the systems, (that link to many
other things) that give the words meaning.<br>
<br>
The various links to text and internet articles that an LLM has,
have links to other things that have links to other things, that
have links to other things, and so on, <i>that originate in the
world</i>. Of course they do, or where else could they come from?<br>
<br>
Just as my brain has links to links, etc., that originate in the
world.<br>
<br>
LLMs <b>do</b> have access to the referents that give words
meaning, in much the same way that we do.<br>
<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
</div>
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</blockquote></div>