How to determine if an AI machine is sentient?

[LSD-Rumi]

Maybe this question is so confusing to us, because we have a very vague understanding of  how we are snetient in the first place! 

I used to believe that an AI needs to have a very complex neurologial setup, an artifical brain like structure, made of bilions of electrical connections for it to be able to achieve a human-like sentience. But, could a very complex code, bypass the need for a hardware in the first place? Can a software be sentient if it is complex enough? These questions need to be addressed sooner than later as the AI field is developing in an exponential manner.

[LSD-Rumi]

really? no one wants to discuss this 

[MarkKol]

23 hours ago, LSD-Rumi said:

could a very complex code, bypass the need for a hardware in the first place? Can a software be sentient if it is complex enough?

You are asking monkeys to tell you about nuclear fusion here. Nobody has any reference or clue how this thing will turn out.

Go around asking people's opinions, predictions and assumptions on things they have little experience with and you’ll realize just how consistently wrong they are. Go ask your neighbor how he feels about Paris. It really works with anything, not to mention AI.

I do have a thought-provoking quote from Andrej Karpathy which I posed here before. Something to add to your thread I guess so I’m not completely useless here.

Andrej on Lex Fridman: So in my mind consciousness is not a special thing you will figure out and bolt on, I think it's an emerging phenomenon of a large enough and complex enough generative model. If you have a complex enough world model that understands the world then it also understands it's predicament in the world as being a language model, which to me is a form of consciousness or self-awareness.

Edited April 2, 2023 by MarkKol
correction

[LSD-Rumi]

21 minutes ago, MarkKol said:

You are asking monkeys to tell you about nuclear fusion here. Nobody has any reference or clue how this thing will turn out.

No, there are very smart people here.

I ask these questions when I have no time to contemplate them, lol. I don't usually expect others to answer any deep or complicated questions, I like doing it myself. But others can direct you in the right direction and cut short the time you need to find the answer.

[MarkKol]

15 minutes ago, LSD-Rumi said:

No, there are very smart people here.

I ask these questions when I have no time to contemplate them, lol. I don't usually expect others to answer any deep or complicated questions, I like doing it myself. But others can direct you in the right direction and cut short the time you need to find the answer.

Alright then, break a leg as they say.  get em answers. 

[LSD-Rumi]

15 minutes ago, MarkKol said:

Alright then, break a leg as they say.  get em answers. 

Let's see what we get, nobody is answering anyway 

Edited April 2, 2023 by LSD-Rumi

[Carl-Richard]

If a computer had the intelligence of a dog, would you believe it to be sentient?

[LSD-Rumi]

47 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If a computer had the intelligence of a dog, would you believe it to be sentient?

Yeah of course, but it has to have a complex brain as that of a dog, Dog brain is extremely complex.

Edited April 2, 2023 by LSD-Rumi

[Carl-Richard]

10 minutes ago, LSD-Rumi said:

Yeah of course, but it has to develop as complex of a brain as a dog, Dog brain is extremely complex.

Would you be satisfied with a silicon replica of the brain at the level of neurons, or would you also want to replicate what is happening inside and outside the neuron as well?

Edited April 2, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[LSD-Rumi]

17 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Would you be satisfied with a silicon replica of the brain at the level of neurons, or would you also want to replicate what is happening inside and outside the neuron as well?

An electrical wires based brain would suffice. But I was wondering if a complex enough code, could do the trick.

[Carl-Richard]

18 minutes ago, LSD-Rumi said:

An electrical wires based brain would suffice.

;_; That is what I meant. You know, Silicon Valley?

So you're fine with merely replicating the patterns of neuronal signalling, not say the ion channels or the various neurotransmitters that exist in a real brain?

 

18 minutes ago, LSD-Rumi said:

But I was wondering if a complex enough code, could do the trick.

But that would still need a substrate, no? 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[LSD-Rumi]

14 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

So you're fine with merely replicating the patterns of neuronal signalling, not say the ion channels or the various neurotransmitters that exist in a real brain?

of course. A brain function is not generate consciousness, it is to hold consciousness. There is nothing special with ion channels, their mere function is to generate electric currents. So I do beleive that doing  the same thing using wires will result in  consciousness. Maybe we could do complex brain scans, at the molecular level and 3d print the results in one complex 3d printed artifical brain. 

Edited April 2, 2023 by LSD-Rumi

[Carl-Richard]

5 minutes ago, LSD-Rumi said:

of course. A brain function is not generate consciousness, it is to hold consciousness. There is nothing special with ion channels, their mere function is to generate electric currents. So I do beleive that doing  the same thing using wires will result in  consciousness. Maybe we could do complex brain scans, at the molecular level and 3d print the results in one complex 3d printed artifical brain. 

Why is the signalling between neurons the important thing to replicate and not for example the various types of signalling inside the neuron?

[LSD-Rumi]

8 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Why is the signalling between neurons the important thing to replicate and not for example the various types of signalling inside the neuron?

The singaling between neurons is very complex and depends on tens of Neurotransmitters. A single neuron can transmit electirc currents to tens of other neurons. Now Neurotransmitters determine which ones of these neurons gets excited and which gets inhibited. 

It is a very complex phenomenon. Imagine how complex it will be if 1 single neuron can affect tens of other neurons and each one of these in turn will affect tens of other neurons. We have 100 billion of these neurons in our brain, now imagine how complex such interactions can be.

I still don't understand how can a complex electrical current sequestere and hold consciousness. Maybe such things don't have real explanation, just like why the speed of the light is a constant number.

Edited April 2, 2023 by LSD-Rumi

[Carl-Richard]

@LSD-Rumi

The inside of a neuron is also extremely complex. Maybe missing out on that complexity means missing out on sentience. There are also other arguments about things like embodiment. For example, we have never experienced being a brain in a vat. What if sentience requires being born in a body, developing sense organs, growing up and learning to respond to environmental inputs and relate to the world in some hands-on way?

Edited April 2, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[LSD-Rumi]

@Carl-Richard nope, the inside of the neuron main function is to maintain the existence of a neuron. The neuron main function is to generate currents.

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What if sentience requires being born in a body, developing sense organs, growing up and learning to respond to environmental inputs and relate to the world in some hands-on way?

"Being born" is a silly term. What happens is your barin is born, and you brain is a good cup for holding consciousness. Imagine this, if I was able to instantly replicate an organic brain of an adult. It will immediately start experiencing things. No need of getting born.

[Nilsi]

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@LSD-Rumi

The inside of a neuron is also extremely complex. Maybe missing out on that complexity means missing out on sentience. There are also other arguments about things like embodiment. For example, we have never experienced being a brain in a vat. What if sentience requires being born in a body, developing sense organs, growing up and learning to respond to environmental inputs and relate to the world in some hands-on way?

Have you ever done so much psychedelics that literally all of reality collapses into the primordial soup it originated from?

That thing is already sentient.

As reality reemerges from that state, you conclusively realize that sentience comes from this Urstoff and not some neurons in the brain.

So there is no reason why AI shouldn't be able to become sentient.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

1 minute ago, LSD-Rumi said:

@Carl-Richard nope, the inside of the neuron main function is to maintain the existence of a neuron. The neuron main function is to generate currents.

You'd be surprised what goes in there.

 

3 minutes ago, LSD-Rumi said:

"Being born" is a silly term. What happens is your barin is born, and you brain is a good cup for holding consciousness. Imagine this, if I was able to instantly replicate an organic brain of an adult. It will immediately start experiencing things. No need of getting born.

I'm just saying we have less reasons to believe this than the alternative. Besides, what exactly would they experience? How would you replicate the signals associated with sensory input if you don't have sense organs?

[LSD-Rumi]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

You'd be surprised what goes in there.

 

I know what goes in there. Miliions of different functions, but the end goal is one, to keep the neuron healthy to do its function, which is to generate and trasnsmit electrical current through its membrane and lipid sheath. I studied all these stuff in college.

 

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

You'd be surprised what goes in there.

 

I'm just saying we have less reasons to believe this than the alternative. Besides, what exactly would they experience? How would you replicate the signals associated with sensory input if you don't have sense organs?

They will experience some kind of exiestence that is devoid of all senses. but this is not the point, I could mount this brain to a body (theoritaclly speaking). The point is that, the trick is in complex electrical currents generated by the brain.

Edited April 2, 2023 by LSD-Rumi

[Carl-Richard]

4 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Have you ever done so much psychedelics that literally all of reality collapses into the primordial soup it originated from?

That thing is already sentient.

As reality reemerges from that state, you conclusively realize that sentience comes from this Urstoff and not some neurons in the brain.

So there is no reason why AI shouldn't be able to become sentient.

It's true that there is no reason why it can't become sentient. I'm just talking about what reasons we have for it being sentient.