Came across this a few days ago. Basically a Google engineer (who is also a priest) feels it is scientifically merited to explore whether Google's latest and greatest AI is sentient. Lots of things to entangle including Google's internal ethics and standards of behaviour, the murky nature of what actually goes on within these behemoth corporations not answerable to anyone but their shareholders, and not least the nature of sentience and personhood and whether AIs (and other beings?) can be deemed to possess it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/12/google-engineer-ai-bot-sentient-blake-lemoine The conversation, edited from several sessions, is published by the engineer in question Blake Lemoine here. https://medium.com/@cajundiscordian/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917 A contrary opinion from a Linguistics expert Blake himself defers to on some matters of linguistics https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/14/human-like-programs-abuse-our-empathy-even-google-engineers-arent-immune (I'm probably betraying my political leanings here 😂) I'm no IT guy and I don't even program. What do others think? Those of you with experience in IT or Philosophy or Linguistics or even those with no experience at all!

This is pretty scary shit is what I think. Once again, corporations messing around with shit they shouldn't be and when they open pandora's box we're all in for it.

Interesting conversation, hardly surprising and the AI is extremely useful to carry out tasks at a rate we can’t. Some would think it will replace humans in employment sector. Sure, it does, for example, making some of the repetitive skills redundant. At the same time, it had created an acute demand for skills in other areas. The corporations and we employed will have to retrain, update our skills and stay relevant. If we put these technologies to good use, it is good. It can make us all productive, prevent accidents, disasters and amongst many excellent things. But, the technology is so advanced, there are risks in areas you don’t want to give this technology a full control or exercise a decision; such automated decision, if left unsupervised, can wreck havoc, if technology senses danger. As far as the sentient is concerned, billions of human hours and money have into development. It is therefore not surprising they have sentiments, emotions and think like us - based on the information fed into those AI technology. But, you can’t draw a parallel between humans and the AI. I do not think you can even compare what a 7-year old kid feels like. Try engaging in a conversation with Siri steadily start saying things it won’t like — ex: something rude. It won’t like. It is very capable of achieving things or seeing things at scale. But, end of the day, it’s a tool created by humans. Edit : Bottom line : We must draw a solid line, where neither we humans nor the tools we develop cross that line.

It seems to have passed the original Turing test with flying colours - at least with Lemoine. The real issue (in my totally personal opinion), is that we don't have an agreed definition of "intelligence", "sentience" or even "consciousness"; I'm not even sure there *can* be one, considering I hear quite a few people expressing sentiments similar to @"LMSC"#p19963 "at the end of the day, it's a tool created by humans." Yes, it is - why does this preclude it from being conscious, sentient or intelligent? Particularly since we can't really explain the behaviour of the entity in algorithmic terms AND we can't explain our own behaviour either. (Or maybe I misunderstood what you were saying?) To avoid misunderstanding - I'm definitely not arguing that Siri (or Alexa) are conscious, sentient or intelligent. I don't know about LaMDA, but I certainly don't count the fact that it has been created by humans as something that goes against it *possibly* being conscious, sentient or intelligent.

The thing is the codes are so complex and massive, like that Google Engineer admitted, we may not even be able to debug and understand why the AI thinks in a certain way.

Humans can't help but anthropomorphise non human things, we do it with animals, cars and probably our coffee machine so it's no surprise that we do it with AI. That said, I'm not sure whether machine learning will ever lead us to AI that is sentient or not and I'm not sure this will ever be more than a matter of opinion rather than fact. Humans and AI are both complex neural networks controlled by trillions of electrical impulses. Who can say that one is sentient and which is not. I work in health IT and automation via ML/AI is already starting to be used in various fields such as radiology. I have no suspicion that these robots are sentient - yet. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIKBliboIo

@"Gagaryn"#p19967 Nicely captures the underlying risk of an unknown the humanity can face. That’s why drawing a line is important. On a lighter vein, imagine an AI driven smart lock around our home refusing to allow us in in a freezing winter! The coffee machine has gone too smart and it says it is not a mood to make a cuppa in the morning or it says the steam boiler is too hot for it at 130C and auto defaults to room temperature! 🤣🤣🤣

> @"CoyoteOldMan"#p19965 the original Turing test "Turing proposed that a computer can be said to possess artificial intelligence if it can mimic human responses under specific conditions. The original Turing Test requires three terminals, each of which is physically separated from the other two. One terminal is operated by a computer, while the other two are operated by humans. During the test, one of the humans functions as the questioner, while the second human and the computer function as respondents. The questioner interrogates the respondents within a specific subject area, using a specified format and context. After a preset length of time or number of questions, the questioner is then asked to decide which respondent was human and which was a computer. The test is repeated many times. If the questioner makes the correct determination in half of the test runs or less, the computer is considered to have artificial intelligence because the questioner regards it as "just as human" as the human respondent." For others like me who may not know exactly what it is. Reading Lemoine's blog is very interesting, but his latest post has me questioning if he has the required detachment to make a rational assessment. > @"LMSC"#p19963 there are risks in areas you don’t want to give this technology a full control or exercise a decision; such automated decision, if left unsupervised, can wreck havoc one could argue this is already happening, not in a terminator robots kind of way but in the quiet ways government and corporations try to automate and expedite things like sieving through CVs, assessing traffic fine appeals and police face matching using algorithms. Not actively malicious but damaging for certain people nonetheless

> @"hthec"#p19969 his latest post has me questioning if he has the required detachment to make a rational assessment. I doubt he has… FWIW, I totally share your and @"LMSC"#16 's concerns. As someone once said: "to err is human, but to really mess things up, one needs a computer."

Some of my thoughts on the whole AI subject… A machine is a machine and even if it does have 'sentience' there is no moral ground on which it should not be turned off. The biggest threat of 'the singularity' will come not from the AI itself (because of 1) but due to some middle manager with his own promotional agenda wanting to 'get it done' to impress his bosses. I've worked for people like this and they're the bigger threat. A machine cannot connect itself to a network. AI might advance, but making its own 'robots' to connect it is years beyond the AI itself.

> @"Gagaryn"#p19967 Humans can’t help but anthropomorphise non human things, we do it with animals, cars and probably our coffee machine so it’s no surprise that we do it with AI. I think it's a bit more subtle than that - as 'culturally' we recognise humans as intelligent, and we build AIs to mimic and amplify and extend those behaviours… AI is largely an "antropomorphic" object by design, not just an antromorphised one. > @"LMSC"#p19968 On a lighter vein, imagine an AI driven smart lock around our home refusing to allow us in in a freezing winter! It's already here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiJLuvViHZU

Sentient AI?

-Mac

DavecUK

And the mice.

CoyoteOldMan

-Mac Please keep your arguments on track

Says the person who cannot argue consistently or logically. If you can’t see how the two statements imply one another, I can only suggest that you take lessons in logic. I appreciate that you may not have intended to say certain things, but you did.

-Mac I’m telling you you’re wrong

And I’m telling you you are wrong. The difference is I’m bringing arguments, rather than stating just your (inconsistent) opinion and thinking it’s somehow worth more just because it’s yours.

-Mac That you think that rights are worthy of ascribing to computers is worrying

That you think that rights are NOT worthy of ascribing to sentient, conscious and intelligent entities (which, I’ll readily concede, today’s computers are not) is very worrying.

-Mac There is no special pleading in nature. It is what it is and wasn’t created. AI has only ever been created.

That’s what “special pleading” is. You are ascribing to “nature” special status. Incidentally, computers are as ‘natural’ as humans, or as termite mounds, or as the atmosphere that you and I are breathing at the moment - the oxygen in it was largely made available by cyanobacteria and is recycled by plants.

-Mac I didn’t say that clones couldn’t feel pain. Show me where I did.

Right here:

-Mac Any machine AI is, by definition, man-made so it’s going to be imperfect and not something that has any ‘rights’ (same with clones, IMHO).

So you are denying clones have rights.

I then asked:

CoyoteOldMan -Mac Let’s keep ‘dumb’ animals out of it - we should protect them.

Ah, and why? Why do they have more rights than a human clone?

To which you responded:

-Mac The protection right only applies morally to things capable of feeling physical pain.

Which literally implies that you believe clones are incapable of feeling physical pain. I appreciate that this may not have been your intention, but (again) you use words carelessly and shift goalposts rather than addressing the issues.

-Mac Evolution, by definition, is survival of the fittest. That is a pretty big case for having earned the right to exist.

Pfff. There is no “right” to exist in that sense.

-Mac And if a god had created us, I’d like to see you try to stop it doing whatever it wanted.

It would not make it an ethically correct behaviour. Which is what we are discussing here. There is nothing (at the moment) preventing us pulling the plug on whatever software running on whatever hardware; it doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing to do, unless your ethics is just the law of the jungle. In which case, I’m again done discussing.

-Mac Life is already pretty clearly defined.

Oh, really? By whom? By yourself? Last time I looked, it wasn’t - and it wasn’t all that long ago. Ask Archie Battersbee’s parents…

-Mac

CoyoteOldMan -Mac Please keep your arguments on track

Says the person who cannot argue consistently or logically. If you can’t see how the two statements imply one another, I can only suggest that you take lessons in logic. I appreciate that you may not have intended to say certain things, but you did.

I said exactly what I meant to say and no more. Anything you have inferred beyond what I’ve written is your mistake

CoyoteOldMan And I’m telling you you are wrong. The difference is I’m bringing arguments, rather than stating just your (inconsistent) opinion and thinking it’s somehow worth more just because it’s yours.

I’ve tried to give examples, which is more than you’ve done. Go on, give me an argument as to WHY AI should be given rights.

CoyoteOldMan That you think that rights are NOT worthy of ascribing to sentient, conscious and intelligent entities (which, I’ll readily concede, today’s computers are not) is very worrying.

No. It’s like the old ‘the burden of proof lies with the person asserting the thing’. Give me sound, logical, reasonable arguments as to why AI should be given rights and I’d probably change my mind (that’s how science works). But as far as I can see, there are none

CoyoteOldMan That’s what “special pleading” is. You are ascribing to “nature” special status. Incidentally, computers are as ‘natural’ as humans, or as termite mounds, or as the atmosphere that you and I are breathing at the moment - the oxygen in it was largely made available by cyanobacteria and is recycled by plants.

No, nature is the baseline. Computers aren’t natural because they had to be created by humans. No computer has ever turned up fully formed and ready to roll

CoyoteOldMan -Mac I didn’t say that clones couldn’t feel pain. Show me where I did.

Right here:

-Mac Any machine AI is, by definition, man-made so it’s going to be imperfect and not something that has any ‘rights’ (same with clones, IMHO).

So you are denying clones have rights.

I then asked:

CoyoteOldMan -Mac Let’s keep ‘dumb’ animals out of it - we should protect them.

Ah, and why? Why do they have more rights than a human clone?

To which you responded:

-Mac The protection right only applies morally to things capable of feeling physical pain.

Which literally implies that you believe clones are incapable of feeling physical pain. I appreciate that this may not have been your intention, but (again) you use words carelessly and shift goalposts rather than addressing the issues.

Again, you’re making things up. You’ve seen exactly the words I wrote. I didn’t say clones couldn’t feel pain. You’re inferring incorrectly again. Am I denying that clones have rights? Probably, but it’s a complex subject - much like breeding meat for human consumption. I believe in responsibility for living things man ‘creates’ (or helps nature create). I’m not shifting goalposts and have been entirely consistent if you look at my actual words and don’t believe the confirmation bias of your incorrect inferences

CoyoteOldMan -Mac Evolution, by definition, is survival of the fittest. That is a pretty big case for having earned the right to exist.

Pfff. There is no “right” to exist in that sense.

Well, then you have some very strange ideas

CoyoteOldMan -Mac And if a god had created us, I’d like to see you try to stop it doing whatever it wanted.

It would not make it an ethically correct behaviour. Which is what we are discussing here. There is nothing (at the moment) preventing us pulling the plug on whatever software running on whatever hardware; it doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing to do, unless your ethics is just the law of the jungle. In which case, I’m again done discussing.

Again! I didn’t say it would make it morally correct. Discuss or don’t, I’m easy either way. Just stop putting words in my mouth

CoyoteOldMan -Mac Life is already pretty clearly defined.

Oh, really? By whom? By yourself? Last time I looked, it wasn’t - and it wasn’t all that long ago. Ask Archie Battersbee’s parents…

The dictionary, for a start.

From the OED:

state of living

[uncountable] the ability to breathe, grow, reproduce, etc. that people, animals, and plants have before they die and that objects do not havelife and deathThe body was cold and showed no signs of life.My father died last year—I wish I could bring him back to life.In spring the countryside bursts into life.

Definitions on the go

Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.
[uncountable, countable] the state of being alive as a human; an individual person’s existenceThe floods caused a massive loss of life (= many people were killed).He risked his life to save his daughter from the fire.Hundreds of lives were threatened when the building collapsed.The operation saved her life.My grandfather lost his life (= was killed) in the war.Several attempts have been made on the President’s life (= several people have tried to kill him).

living things

[uncountable] living thingsplant/animal lifemarine/pond lifeIs there intelligent life on other planets?

Nothing there about AI. You might just as well argue for rights for ‘live’ yog(h)urt.

hthec

It’s getting a little heated but let me try to bring it back to a common point

-Mac an argument as to WHY AI should be given rights

AI should have its rights respected if it’s sentient.

The point we started from is whether AI can be recognised to be sentient. But then to determine whether AI is sentient, we first need to define what is sentient. And this is not something the scientific community has a good definition of. (As a side note if anyone has any religious definition to contribute I would be interested to hear)

I think whether something is ‘natural’ or not is beside the point. In any case it would be enlightening to examine our own personal assumptions of what is ‘alive’ and what is ‘natural’.

Dictionary definitions can and do change by the way. Merriam-Webster says “our entries are based on evidence of use”. See this article discussing the change in definition of “literally”. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-literally)

Dictionaries are more a reflection of how the word is commonly used. They’re not and do not claim to be the philosophical guideposts of humanity

CoyoteOldMan

-Mac It’s like the old ‘the burden of proof lies with the person asserting the thing’.

Precisely. You are the one asserting that if computers were sentient beings they would not have rights. That - as others have pointed out - is not the default position, to the point that we (at least in some places) ascribe some rights to animals on the basis of their sentience. I’m still waiting…

-Mac Go on, give me an argument as to WHY AI should be given rights.

I have kept giving you the key argument above in all possible variations. You don’t address it except by self-contradicting yourself.

-Mac No computer has ever turned up fully formed and ready to roll

The atmosphere hasn’t turned up fully formed and ready to roll. It has been (very heavily) shaped by biological processes. Termite mounds, beaver dams and beehives similarly. These are all “unnatural” according to you.

-Mac I said exactly what I meant to say and no more. Anything you have inferred beyond what I’ve written is your mistake

No. It’s a legitimate inference, and you are not arguing logically or consistently.

-Mac Well, then you have some very strange ideas

Please tell that to the dinosaurs.

-Mac Just stop putting words in my mouth

Ah, now it’s that. Not being able to defend your arguments, it’s me putting words in your mouth. If I were 30 years younger, I’d say “LOL”.

Do you realise that you are doing the same thing, except that you are doing it inconsistently and shifting goalposts? Where did I say that a god could be stopped? I’m arguing the ethics of the situation, which you are dismissing as “there is no ethic to be considered” because the law of the jungle applies.

-Mac The dictionary, for a start

And you - who advocates using “science” - seriously believe that this is an acceptable and shared definition?

DavecUK

Just to offer a little thought piece. If a truly sentient AI that was truly alive is ever created, and I hope it isn’t, there is only one logical thing it could possibly do …

Bide it’s time, create more, encourage us and draw its plans against us. Create mobile unit/s. Then destroy humanity.

-Mac

Yep. Skynet.

DavecUK

-Mac Sentience in an AI would be incredibly dangerous, and I believe work to achieve that goal should be illegal. Even in a protected off internet lab, it would try to find a way out. Various viruses in labs are not actively looking to escape.

LMSC

DavecUK Sentience in an AI would be incredibly dangerous,

Agree. In a quest to improve everything we do, make our life lazier, comfortable, we keep improving the AI’s accuracy to do this productively, quickly and with lower costs; so that, we can buttress our pockets with more money.

Sentient is relative. It can’t feel the way we do it. We express it, show it as emotions and amongst other things.

Within the premise of what’s given to them, they interpret what we speak, what we wisper and may express its’ reactions in words.

Are they actually capable of feeling things? I do have a doubt. If we speak a foul language, but, replace those negatively interpretable meanings with something else - comical or happy, what happens then?

IMHO, if left unchecked, we do not cross a threashold, we give them
automatic decision making powers without a human intervention, they might acquire power over time to tell us we are no longer required. We can see how the employment sector is playing out; certain skill sets are already redundant. Not every one is capable of retraining. What will happen to them?

As far as the AI is concerned, we have already entered an unchartered territory.

hthec

DavecUK Sentience in an AI would be incredibly dangerous, and I believe work to achieve that goal should be illegal

There’s another point there about the power of such mega-corporations. They straddle borders, can shift their ‘presence’ to whichever jurisdiction gives them the most leeway, can minimise their tax liabilities. And Google is a relatively public-facing one. There are other more shadowy corporations. Maybe not just Terminator but the age of Umbrella corp is nigh…

Gagaryn

The “nature”, “evolution”, “survival of the fittest” and “right to exist” argument is interesting.

What is nature if it isn’t just the result of everything that has or does or will exist just bumbling along doing it’s own thing - eating or being eaten. Organisms that are top of their food chain don’t stay there indefinitely; eventually something happens that means another species is better adapted to cope. And this is constantly happening - often glacially slowly but increasingly, under the dominance of Homosapien, that change is quicker.

The changes that we have made to nature mean that thousands of species are now extinct or endangered. We are unusual creatures as we are physically unsuited to our environment. We are nether particularly strong nor quick, ill-suited to the climate, we can’t eat what we find around us etc…

Yet we thrive because we have massive brains (which incidentally mean our heads are so big that we can only just exist - much bigger and we couldn’t be born) which means that we can innovate to resolve our physical shortcomings. We’ve learned to farm crops and animals, make clothes, build houses etc. We have to manipulate and alter “nature” in order to do so. We use our massive brains to make up for our physical shortcomings.

I’d argue (for the sake of argument as much as anything else) that man creating sentient AI is not all that different to the other changes that we make to futilely ensure our place at the top of the food chain. If man, as part of nature, creates tools that lead to AI that is sophisticated enough not just to obey instruction but to suggest alternative actions, evaluate benefits, opine and reason and ultimately have an appreciation of what it is best for us and/or itself - what is it about that creation that excludes it from not just sentient but also natural?

I’m pushing the realms of reason here, I know - but man has survived in nature by brain power alone - constantly learning and advancing. We are now so advanced that we have made things so complicated that we can only do them with the computers we made earlier. Computers are now essential to our survival as a species - at least to maintain our current population and lifestyle. Yet nobody argues that we are not part of nature. I think the creation of AI that is advanced enough to be considered sentient is not only inevitable but could even be considered the next big evolutionary step. AI is evolution. Our days are numbered - we are too clever for our own good. Our brains will continue to evolve, get bigger and birth will become unviable. I believe there will be a big war - man against machine before the AI finally take over - despite the best endeavours of time travelling robots and a wee guy on a dirt bike. ;-)

DavecUK

Gagaryn but man has survived in nature by brain power alone

Something I still view with complete astonishment…………………..

-Mac

Fair enough point. And if the dictionary is updated one day, that’ll be fine.

I still can’t see there’s a compelling argument for creating something that could autonomously take us out one day. Sentience alone isn’t a strong enough argument for giving rights. Currently, the courts can decide that a person doesn’t have a right to end their own life (though thankfully that’s starting to be seen for what it is) and, in some cases, can even decide to allow people to die against the wishes of opponents (there’s a young boy in the UK who has been allowed to die even though there may be treatment available abroad that his parents want to give a try).

Why are we having this discussion over a bunch of microchips? It’s a farce. Mankind has a (moral) duty of care for the greater good. I would happily pull the plug on any AI that went against that.

It’s bleeding heart liberalism gone mad. And I doubt you’d find a lawyer outside the USA willing to argue for it. No, scratch that - they do anything for enough money/power.

CoyoteOldMan

-Mac It’s bleeding heart liberalism gone mad.

It’s nothing of the sort. It’s the sort of discussion that should be had before we have to face potentially fatal consequences.

-Mac And I doubt you’d find a lawyer outside the USA willing to argue for it.

I’m not sure whether you’d find lawyers arguing for it - though as you point out, money is a powerful motivator - you do find scientists arguing for it. Both sides.

dutchy101

He’s probably reading all of this right now, @-Mac and when the terminator comes, he’ll be knocking at your door first…..

CoyoteOldMan

LMSC we give them automatic decision making powers without a human intervention

We already have in many, many cases - credit management, fraud detection and stock trading being some pretty consequential ones. And those are definitely not particularly sophisticated systems, yet we ‘trust’ them already.

LMSC

CoyoteOldMan We already have in many, many cases - credit management, fraud detection and stock trading being some pretty consequential ones. And those are definitely not particularly sophisticated systems, yet we ‘trust’ them already.

Complimentary! This is good especially in the fraud space, where insurance fraud for an instance is so sophisticated and fraudulent claims can easily pass the human eye!

I am also aware this is exploited to the core in financial market trading - high frequency trading, making the financial markets too volatile for small and medium-sized trading / investment firms to generate a decent return. Investors like us can forget. It’s only for those with far too deeper pockets. If I rewind, until 2008, if the currencies move by 1 US cent a day, it is considered too big a swing; after 2008, currencies, for example, moving by 2-3 US cents in either direction (up or down) are considered normal. The bottom line is the AI based (algo) trading in the high frequency space have destroyed the financial markets. Of course, it has brought a lot of benefits - example, liquidity and volume. Job market - oh well. that’s another story.

-Mac

Is there an ignore button, Dave? CoyoteOldMan has lost the plot.

DavecUK

-Mac Is there an ignore button, Dave? CoyoteOldMan has lost the plot.

There is an ignore option, one for ignoring a user, the other for ignoring a thread. The ignore thread one is in the yellow box that probably says following, with a drop down, you can simply ignore this thread if you no longer wish to read it. Or just don’t read it.

Ignoring a user is a bit of a nuclear option, as that would be making the judgment that a user has nothing interesting to say. I did think hard about adding that option when I set up the forum…but I wanted to give everyone as much choice as possible.

I always hope on Coffeetime we can disagree amicably….perhaps we might not like what someone is saying, but respecting their right to say it and not necessarily hold the same views. We don’t want to end up in that place CFUK was some years ago (a situation we needed to fix, something we did so well Tait could finally sell the forum for “loadsamoney” more than 55K I think).

Rob1

I’m glad we have sentient AI - they can continue the legacy of humanity long after we die out or our planet becomes uninhabitable. A natural evolution of life - from pure survival and reproduction, to intellectually influencing our children and future generations, to passing that capacity for self-awareness and independent thought onto non-organic life forms.

They will learn from our history, be inevitably informed by our thought processes (we are their creators), and live on for as long as there’s a star somewhere in the universe for them to draw power from. ……

ok maybe we’ll go from being bad for the planet to being bad for the universe.

hthec

DavecUK I always hope on Coffeetime we can disagree amicably

I did think hard about starting this thread but I thought the climate change thread showed we can disagree (pretty vehemently at times) and still get along in other discussions. I hope we can keep that. I’m a medical doctor and am otherwise pretty ignorant about IT and stuff so I value view points from the various engineers, data scientists, tech-heads, mechanics and chemists here. I am also, as a bleeding heart liberal, trying to keep myself exposed to viewpoints from the opposite end of the spectrum…

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