[ExI] More thoughts on sentient computers

[Jason Resch]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 2:31 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
> Thanks, Ben - another question:  why do we, or they, or somebody, think
> that an AI has to be conscious to solve the problems we have?  Our
> unconscious mind solves most of our problems now, doesn't it?  I think it
> does.  bill w
>
>>

Why do we assume our "unconscious mind" is unconscious, rather than another
mind whose consciousness we don't have access to?

Jason


>>
>>
>> .
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 12:24 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> bill w asked:
>>
>>  >Three silly questions: how would you know if you had created a
>> conscious mind? Why do you want to do that? What makes that necessary?
>> bill w
>>
>>
>> I like silly questions! (some of them anyway)
>>
>> 1) How would you know?
>> Probably you would never know for sure, just as you don't know for sure
>> that I'm a conscious mind. But I'd say we'd use the same criteria as we
>> do with each other, or for the existence/non-existence of gods, so while
>> we never absolutely know for sure, we can make a damned good guess,
>> based on the evidence at our disposal.
>>
>> 2) Why do it?
>> Because we're transhumanists, and want the sum total of self-awareness
>> and intelligence in the universe to increase. Because we recognise the
>> severe limitations of biological life, and if we can create artificial
>> minds, we can overcome these limitations. Because we know that humans
>> have a limited lifespan, both as individuals and as a species, and this
>> is a way of going way beyond that.
>>
>> 3) What makes it necessary?
>> Well, that depends on your priorities. People who think that humanity is
>> a stain on the world and things would be better without it, probably
>> think it's not only not necessary, but undesirable. I think it's
>> necessary because we are tragically weak, fragile and confused, and
>> anything we can do to correct or side-step that is a good thing.
>> Artificial minds are our chance to pass down our most significant
>> quality to the future, in a form that has a chance of surviving and
>> thriving in the long-term (very long-term, as in billions of years and
>> more).
>>
>> Oh, and it may be the only realistic way to achieve mind uploading. We
>> probably aren't capable of figuring it out, or at least of actually
>> doing it, by ourselves.
>>
>> And it may be the only way we're going to get out of the many pickles
>> we're getting ourselves into, too. Maybe we need a non-human perspective
>> to solve the various seemingly unsolvable problems we've got. I don't
>> need to make a list, I'm sure you can think of plenty.
>>
>> Ben
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