I'm a software engineer, completing 10 years of professional experience this year. I started my career as a web frontend engineer (it was easier for me to de...
Nothing’s inevitable. And as for “building a mind”, while it depends on precisely what you mean by “mind”, it’s totally possible that only a biological brain can produce minds as we understand the word “mind”. Building AGI doesn’t necessarily mean building a mind. And since thoughts seem to be properties of “matter”, and there seem to be rules about which configurations of matter produce mind, we don’t necessarily know that there are other configurations that can produce minds. We might produce something else equally interesting which still is not a mind.
it’s totally possible that only a biological brain can produce minds as we understand the word “mind”.
Bollocks. Thought is a process, like math. Nothing meat does with signals is impossible in other substrates.
At the utmost extreme: surely we can simulate physics at whatever level is necessary for virtual brains to function. Physical neurons are not gonna rely on quantum chromodynamics. Mere chemistry will probably suffice.
And hand-waving things that are like-minds-but sounds like Chinese Room nonsense.
You’re making a baseless assumption about the inner being of every process. If you simulate physics then you’re actually doing different physics, where the map is not the terrain. If the hardware is different then the inner being of the thing may very well be different.
You’re actually displaying a lack of imagination here. You’re not considering things other than consciousness. If you simulate the processes which on the surface resemble the processes that you see in the brain when observing from the outside, what you produce may be something equally interesting and yet totally different in-itself from subjective experience.
Woo-woo nonsense. Indefensible without invoking the supernatural.
Everyone you’ve ever met is a meat robot, and they run on physics. How they feel about it does not change that.
And I already said, we invented p-zombies. LLMs display intelligence without consciousness. Your hand-wavy what-if doesn’t work as a gotcha because we’re already there. Nonetheless - these shortfalls are a big fucking hint that magic isn’t real.
If consciousness is a physical process, then a different physical process (such as an intelligent process running on different hardware) cannot be assumed to produce the same result (the result of conscious experience).
Like planes don’t experience flight unless they flap.
This is stupid. I acknowledge that’s not an airtight logical counterargument, but just, come the fuck on. You are asserting that neurons made of silicon, with identical observable function, wouldn’t count somehow. Charitably: wouldn’t work, somehow. That at least distinguishes it from standard Chinese Room horseshit. But if we can fake every neuron to do the same thing, or simulate the entire physical environment to do the same thing, of fucking course it’s going to do the same thing. If the laws of the universe somehow mean only meat can experience being a true Scotsman, we can fake those laws.
You’ve picked a philosophical nit that is somehow at odds with Turing completeness. Unless you think physics are incomputable - it cannot matter what substrate they run on. It’s literally math.
Like planes don’t experience flight unless they flap.
Are you claiming that planes experience flight?
This is stupid.
k
come the fuck on
k
neurons made of silicon
Two problems with this: (1) The virtual neural net of LLMs don’t have neurons made of silicon. Their neurons are virtual, abstract, not physical phenomena. (2) Even if we move to the idea of a positronic brain like Data from Star Trek or the Terminator, it still isn’t our chemical-electrical brain which has different physical properties. This is very simple. It is a different physical object. It is different. It is not what we are.
Chinese Room horseshit
k
simulate the entire physical environment to do the same thing
If you are simulating it, it is a different thing.
It’s literally math.
This is a metaphysical assumption much closer to the “woo” that you keep accusing me of, and cursing at me about.
it cannot matter what substrate they run on
This contradicts your statement that “It’s literally math” because you can calculate the difference between substrates.
You say that, and GAs were used decades ago to design FPGAs to a spec. The evolved design worked perfectly on the test chip, so the design was copied onto a second chip and it failed. The logic gates were identical but the GA had utilised microscopic differences in the substrate and there were large areas of programmed chip totally unconnected to the main circuit. Without them, the first chip didn’t work any more.
There are likely quantum effects available at the size / scale of neurons, and it’s brave to say evolution wouldn’t exploit them if there was some benefit.
Yeah yeah yeah, probably exploiting capacitance instead of on-spec functionality, I’m well familiar with this example. It’s not relevant - there’s eight billion human brains in the world, and they generally still function despite the wild shit we put them through. They are not fragile.
A human mind is not balanced on a knife-edge, where one tiny difference breaks everything. They’re complex enough that sometimes blowing a railroad spike clean through just alters functionality. It’s still a mind. Subatomic interactions surely cannot be crucial here.
And again, this is only the extreme example. Y’think all known laws of the universe are mandatory? Great, simulate those too. Same answer: meat has no monopoly on thought because metal can fake the meat. There is no philosophical basis for even suggesting AGI is impossible, unless you start talking about souls.
The scale of neurons is too big for quantum effects, but that’s contemporary understanding that may change in the future. We’re really far from understanding both what mind is and how to make one
Nothing’s inevitable. And as for “building a mind”, while it depends on precisely what you mean by “mind”, it’s totally possible that only a biological brain can produce minds as we understand the word “mind”. Building AGI doesn’t necessarily mean building a mind. And since thoughts seem to be properties of “matter”, and there seem to be rules about which configurations of matter produce mind, we don’t necessarily know that there are other configurations that can produce minds. We might produce something else equally interesting which still is not a mind.
Bollocks. Thought is a process, like math. Nothing meat does with signals is impossible in other substrates.
At the utmost extreme: surely we can simulate physics at whatever level is necessary for virtual brains to function. Physical neurons are not gonna rely on quantum chromodynamics. Mere chemistry will probably suffice.
And hand-waving things that are like-minds-but sounds like Chinese Room nonsense.
You’re making a baseless assumption about the inner being of every process. If you simulate physics then you’re actually doing different physics, where the map is not the terrain. If the hardware is different then the inner being of the thing may very well be different.
You’re actually displaying a lack of imagination here. You’re not considering things other than consciousness. If you simulate the processes which on the surface resemble the processes that you see in the brain when observing from the outside, what you produce may be something equally interesting and yet totally different in-itself from subjective experience.
You don’t know as much as you think you know.
Woo-woo nonsense. Indefensible without invoking the supernatural.
Everyone you’ve ever met is a meat robot, and they run on physics. How they feel about it does not change that.
And I already said, we invented p-zombies. LLMs display intelligence without consciousness. Your hand-wavy what-if doesn’t work as a gotcha because we’re already there. Nonetheless - these shortfalls are a big fucking hint that magic isn’t real.
that’s precisely what I’m saying
That’s precisely what I’m saying
Nobody said anything about a gotcha
Nobody said anything about magic.
If consciousness is a physical process, then a different physical process (such as an intelligent process running on different hardware) cannot be assumed to produce the same result (the result of conscious experience).
Like planes don’t experience flight unless they flap.
This is stupid. I acknowledge that’s not an airtight logical counterargument, but just, come the fuck on. You are asserting that neurons made of silicon, with identical observable function, wouldn’t count somehow. Charitably: wouldn’t work, somehow. That at least distinguishes it from standard Chinese Room horseshit. But if we can fake every neuron to do the same thing, or simulate the entire physical environment to do the same thing, of fucking course it’s going to do the same thing. If the laws of the universe somehow mean only meat can experience being a true Scotsman, we can fake those laws.
You’ve picked a philosophical nit that is somehow at odds with Turing completeness. Unless you think physics are incomputable - it cannot matter what substrate they run on. It’s literally math.
Are you claiming that planes experience flight?
k
k
Two problems with this: (1) The virtual neural net of LLMs don’t have neurons made of silicon. Their neurons are virtual, abstract, not physical phenomena. (2) Even if we move to the idea of a positronic brain like Data from Star Trek or the Terminator, it still isn’t our chemical-electrical brain which has different physical properties. This is very simple. It is a different physical object. It is different. It is not what we are.
k
If you are simulating it, it is a different thing.
This is a metaphysical assumption much closer to the “woo” that you keep accusing me of, and cursing at me about.
This contradicts your statement that “It’s literally math” because you can calculate the difference between substrates.
No.
If a simulated person experiences consciousness, that experience is real. That’s qualia, numbnuts. That is a mind.
I’m not gonna pick apart the word salad of ‘calculating the difference between substrates’ if you can’t even keep your philosophy straight.
k
You’re just throwing the assumption of experience into the sentence for no reason. You have beliefs about this stuff, not facts.
You say that, and GAs were used decades ago to design FPGAs to a spec. The evolved design worked perfectly on the test chip, so the design was copied onto a second chip and it failed. The logic gates were identical but the GA had utilised microscopic differences in the substrate and there were large areas of programmed chip totally unconnected to the main circuit. Without them, the first chip didn’t work any more.
There are likely quantum effects available at the size / scale of neurons, and it’s brave to say evolution wouldn’t exploit them if there was some benefit.
Yeah yeah yeah, probably exploiting capacitance instead of on-spec functionality, I’m well familiar with this example. It’s not relevant - there’s eight billion human brains in the world, and they generally still function despite the wild shit we put them through. They are not fragile.
A human mind is not balanced on a knife-edge, where one tiny difference breaks everything. They’re complex enough that sometimes blowing a railroad spike clean through just alters functionality. It’s still a mind. Subatomic interactions surely cannot be crucial here.
And again, this is only the extreme example. Y’think all known laws of the universe are mandatory? Great, simulate those too. Same answer: meat has no monopoly on thought because metal can fake the meat. There is no philosophical basis for even suggesting AGI is impossible, unless you start talking about souls.
The scale of neurons is too big for quantum effects, but that’s contemporary understanding that may change in the future. We’re really far from understanding both what mind is and how to make one