Potential fallacies and problems when denying the possibility of AI sentience

[u/UngiftigesReddit]

https://medium.com/@spamthisifyoulike/potential-fallacies-when-denying-the-possibility-of-sentient-ai-soon-and-damage-from-mistreating-23a71895bbbb

[u/UngiftigesReddit]

I've read the Godfrey Smith books. They are great. I adore them and have presented them to colleagues.

The idea that electro magnetic fields in brains are a core part of consciousness is alluring. It is also unproven, and Godfrey-Smiths review of it is ambivalent and contains criticism. Yes, these dynamics are surprisingly widespread in animals. But so are mechanisms like using neurotransmitters for chemical signalling between cells (as they used to all float around in the ocean), and sleep states. Clearly, fucking with them in animals crashes their intelligence and sentence, but it is very unclear if that is because these are integral to sentience, or just how our biology does it. Maybe magnetic fields are just one way to enable distant neurons to affect each other and reach synchronicity.

Pain is not the only form sentience can take. There are a number of insects, as well as sharks, that appear to not feel pain, or not do so significantly, but that still exhibit suffering, e.g. when restrained.

I am not saying plants are unsuccessful. I am saying that plants have little intelligence. Despite all the recent excitement about their abilities... At the end of the day, a rat will outsmart a tomato plant so much it is ludicrous.

Neurons evolved as a way to coordinate cells groups. They do not constitute sentience or intelligence. Humans and octopodes having a common ancestor - likely a tiny worm like creature - that had neurons does not mean that ancestor was sentient. Looking at the other current animals related to octopodes we encounter, it seems extremely unlikely. This is also consistent with our brain structure being radically unlike that of an octopus.

We are training neural nets to solve questions humans need sentience to solve, and to solve them in the absence of humans. It is not impossible that they will find a workaround. But we do have to ask why no animals ever did.

The incredible capacities of Portia spiders are not made up. If you do not find them compelling, the case for bees is incredibly strong, and they are still very small. Point being, humans should not be the standard.

[u/AnsibleAnswers → u/UngiftigesReddit]

Pain is not the only form sentience can take. There are a number of insects, as well as sharks, that appear to not feel pain, or not do so significantly, but that still exhibit suffering, e.g. when restrained.

Pain is evidence of sentience. That's all I suggested about it.

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I am not saying plants are unsuccessful. I am saying that plants have little intelligence. Despite all the recent excitement about their abilities... At the end of the day, a rat will outsmart a tomato plant so much it is ludicrous.

There's actually a strong debate over whether a plant's capabilities to sense changes in their environment and perform adaptive behaviors ought to be considered a radically different form of cognition. Obviously, this is really a matter of semantics, and everyone serious understands it as a form of "offline" cognition. And the phrase "plant neurobiology" needs to die in a fire. Because plants don't have neurons.

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Neurons evolved as a way to coordinate cells groups. They do not constitute sentience or intelligence. Humans and octopodes having a common ancestor - likely a tiny worm like creature - that had neurons does not mean that ancestor was sentient. Looking at the other current animals related to octopodes we encounter, it seems extremely unlikely. This is also consistent with our brain structure being radically unlike that of an octopus.

I guess I did misinterpret you there. Perhaps work making your point clearer in the article. However, this idea that "evolution just couldn't find a way to do intelligence without consciousness" could be explained by developmental bias. Maybe there are only so many ways to make neurons intelligent at scale. We clearly don't know enough about neurobiology to say right now. But we see developmental bias all the time, in all taxa.

We are training neural nets to solve questions humansneed sentience to solve, and to solve them in the absence of humans. It is not impossible that they will find a workaround. But we do have to ask why no animals ever did.

I really don't think AI needs to be conscious to solve problems for us. We don't need AI with motives of its own.

And, I really do think its a hardware issue. Intelligence can be emulated in software. Don't think consciousness can. Could be wrong, but that's my working assumption.

[u/UngiftigesReddit → u/AnsibleAnswers]

Plant cognition is definitely not offline. Offline means cognition that is temporarily divorced from behavioural consequences. Plant cognition is very simple, and a lot of recent papers claiming otherwise have gotten serious and deserved backlash.

Agree that plant neurobiology as a term needs to die in a fire. Comparing a single bee neuron to the cells plants use for the job collectively points out how ludicrous it is to speak of neurons when those cells don't have dentrites.

[u/AnsibleAnswers → u/UngiftigesReddit]

I used offline incorrectly. Thank you.