[ExI] Searle and AI

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Sun Dec 27 17:41:41 UTC 2009


On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 08:32:59AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote:

> I was led to think that Searle believes that conscious AI is impossible 
> (due to certain people saying things like "Strong AI of the sort that Searle 
> refutes"), but in "Why I Am Not a Property Dualist", he says:

You have to give the man his dues: as a troll he's really good.
But even that is mostly our fault, not his accomplishment.
 
> "Maybe someday we will be able to create conscious artifacts, in which case 
> subjective states of consciousness will be ‘physical’ features of those artifacts"

Physical, as opposed to what? Ether flux? Dark matter bunnies?
How does he think computation works in this universe?
 
> and
> 
> "Consciousness is thus an ordinary feature of certain biological systems, 
> in the same way that photosynthesis, digestion, and lactation are ordinary 
> features of biological systems"

Well, what else can you expect from a mythical substratist.
 
> Thinking that we will maybe be able to create conscious artifacts 
> someday is what I call affirmation of the idea, not refutation.

Thoughts are cheap, deeds are hard. You only get credit for the latter.
 
> He even hints at how this might be possible, by comparing it to 

Why are you looking so hard for merit that just isn't there?
There's plenty more usable material in an old MAD magazine, if you
used the same amount of attention you grant Searle for no damn
reason.

> photosynthesis, which we are now very close to being able 
> to reproduce in non-biological systems.

The only way how achieving practical artificial photosynthesis would help is
because it would represent a certain milestone in our capabilities
of designing and manufacturing at molecular scale, which would also 
immediately profit molecular electronics, which will allow extracting 
huge number of crunch from a given number of atoms and Joules, which
would be enough to bootstrap AI. 

With a sufficiently large hammer, few things are impossible.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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