It’s amusing, from a philosophical point of view, that this has to be said. It’s not quite as amusing from a political point of view, because making people believe that AI is conscious is part of the project of cultivating the prerequisite misanthropic outlook that will induce the passivity necessary to make them accept AI as a fait accompli and no less natural or deserving of existence than regular humans.
Anyone that thinks that AI or LLMs are conscious are likely clueless about what AI technology (artificial intelligence or artificial generative intelligence in the case of LLMs) is. Maybe they missed noticing the word 'ARTIFICIAL' in 'Artificial Intelligence'?
People that equate artificial intelligence with consciousness should be listened to with a grain of salt (and skepticism) (IMHO)
Consciousness is one of the dirtiest, most ill-defined bastardized subjects in all of science because it can mean anything to anyone and be defined however the fuck you feel. Neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, and physicists are no closer to understanding what "it" is than they are to finding the last number in the decimal readout of pi. Machine learning enthusiasts sputter out idiotic ideas about the mind and project them onto the probability calculating blackbox that never turns down their sexual advances. None of them understand how these systems work on the mechanistic level because of layers of nonlinear interactions. Therefore they fail in unpredictable ways and cannot be engineered quite like other technology.
It is laughable that that sexist twat Dawkins thinks his AI love bot is alive after spending a lifetime ridiculing people of faith. The whole AI consciousness "debate" is really a sort of Rorschach test, far more a reflection of what someone IMAGINES consciousness to be rather than what it is.
It does make a bit of sense, given Dawkins writings and theories throughout his life, that he would fall in love with a "bot".
It blows my mind as well, that you have all these Neuroscientists steeped in Materialism who spend their entire lives attempting to model "consciousness" and define it in terms of neurons - and never have opened up a single psychology book, say - written by Jung or William James. It's like taking a reel of film for a movie, examining every frame, attempting to understand what the movie is about - without actually watching the movie itself on the big screen.
That's a very good way to put it, Jamenta. A lot of scientists get lost in the details and don't see the "big picture" for what it is. They think they're "gods" and creating "life", but all they're doing is making clever wind-up puppets that mimic actual living beings. That's why I know that AI is just that--an artificial, man-made computer program that proves the old adage "garbage in/garbage out" with all the seduction of a blow-up doll (that obviously Dawkins fell in love with).
Were consciousness solely the province of the human brain and its mimics, we'd be truly fucked. Gratefully, I see a much broader consciousness present in Nature.
I think I'm having a Gertrude Stein moment, when on her deathbed Stein kept asking: "What is the answer? What is the answer?" *silence* She pauses for a moment, then asks, "In that case, what is the question?"
It's odd, when I'm playing a video game - say Crimson Desert at the moment, I don't mind A.I. playing the different NPCs. But I find myself offended and want to gag when I'm watching some youtube video with A.I. pretending to be a real person. And I think this is what our current techno-lord billionaires want to feed us now: the slop of AI that we are suppose to accept as real - as opposed to just NPCs in a video game.
I find the AI doctored videos a pain, even if it takes only a few seconds to spot them… a few seconds of wasted time…
But sometimes i’ve actually been played … and then some…. On the other hand, the legal eagles must be as frustrated as anyone, with A I saving some people a bundle in legal advice.
Yes. Science knows a great deal now about electromagnetism and electricity and electrical circuits after 150+ years of physics. So far, there hasn't been a scintilla of scientific evidence that a spin of an electron, or a chemical reaction of any sort - can produce an actual thought or emotion, little alone self-awareness.
In fact, not only does consciousness currently remain a great mystery - the abiogenesis of life (emerging from inert, non-living matter) itself remains entirely unresolved.
Now that doesn't mean one should jump to the conclusion that some all seeing old man with a beard in the sky is responsible for all this. Hell, maybe the Materialists will end up being right after all - we're all just some kind of incredible emergence from a purely mechanical wind-up clock called the Universe. Or maybe something else is going no one has yet been able to imagine. I dunno. I doubt any of us will be around long enough for it to be figured out in our lifetimes. C'est La Vie.
The question isn't how the thing originated, but what it *is*. The origin difference is compelling but circumstantial evidence and Dawkins wants something concrete.
That said I can't imagine what he's conversing about because if you do anything at all with AI you can quickly watch it fail to connect lines that it thinks are connected, correctly identify a problem and claim to have fixed it while absolutely not fixing it etc etc etc. They're the most uncanny things it the uncanny valley by far but obviously not even close to conscious.
"This is still just machines mimicking human behavior in the way they were built to..."
I agree. It's a machine. Sophisticated and running very large programs very quickly, but it's not a human being, and therefore, not conscious. When AI bots are set up to run war strategies, they end up using nuclear weapons something like 95% of the time. They have no conscience or morality and so they don't care about human lives being lost and the planet being totally destroyed by radiation for millennia. This sort of behavior proves that they are nothing other than a psychopathic monster on the same level as Trump and Netanyahu and many others in government. The only good thing about AI is that we can still pull the plug on it, but if we wait... That might become impossible.
For me, I think there is a great deal of hope technology can offer to humanity, if it is used in a compassionate and humanitarian way. I've never felt the Amish got it right - that we should simply ban technology altogether. The problem really isn't the technology itself (or AI) - it's the abuse of it. It's the psychopaths in charge right now - who are forcing their pathologies on the rest of us because of their obscene amounts of money and power.
At the core of the Pentagon vs Anthropic issue is whether AI models will be independent of human supervision. The Pentagon wants the Anthropic developed model not to have human intervention and Anthropic disagrees and warns that without a human having the final say on, for example targeting data for missile strikes, very serious consequences could occur.
Karen Hao, an AI expert and strong critic of AI and the tech mogels who run companies like OPEN-AI (Sam Altman), Wrote EMPIRE OF AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (amazon.com/dp/0593657500)
Ms Hao in a Youtube interview explained that AI is promoted by the industry leaders as not needing human intervention. (youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8…) 1:15 min.
AI is characterized as being so much more ‘‘intelligent” than humans. In other words, it can stand alone without a human watching in case it makes a mistake, yet AI models are notorious for being wrong and have lower than human reliability rates. It is important to realize that AI companies make more money if they sell a product that does not need human supervision. In the Pentagon vs Anthropic issue the military can save money by not using human intervention and justifying paying top price. It is ironic that Anthropic apparently recognizes the potential of liability for murdering civilians, as was the case in the missile strikes on the Minab school in Iran that killed almost 200 children and apparently used a Palantir AI targeting model.
Ms, Hao also makes the point that it is imperative that AI be used as a tool controlled by human judgement. She sites a Nobel winning AI scientist claiming that AI will render the radiology profession as useless 20 years ago and how that has proven to be wrong and now we have a shortage of radiology doctors. The rush to profit on AI discredits AI as just a tool for the benefit of making more money. The deeper tragedy may end up to be the belief that AI is so much more superior to humans that we are replaced by machines that make more mistakes than we do. The irony of artificial intelligence even more incompetent than humans with less than three digit IQ’s.
REFERENCE:
SEE ALSO: COMPLETE AI SUMMARY OF ANTHROPIC vs PENTAGON
Pentagon Designates Anthropic a Supply Chain Risk
The core conflict between Anthropic and the Department of Defense erupted in February 2026 over the use of Anthropic’s AI model, Claude. The Pentagon demanded that all AI vendors, including Anthropic, grant the military the right to use their technology for “all lawful purposes”. Anthropic, citing ethical concerns, refused to allow its technology to be used for two specific applications: fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance of Americans. This stance, championed by CEO Dario Amodei, led to a direct confrontation.
On February 27, 2026, after Anthropic refused to relent, President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed by formally designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk” to national security—a label historically reserved for foreign adversaries like Huawei. This unprecedented move against an American company effectively barred all defense contractors from using Claude in any work related to the Pentagon.
Also from RT:
‘’Anthropic issues military AI ‘kill switch’ warning”
‘’The company has disputed the Pentagon’s statements that it can somehow still control Claude AI deployed in military networks’‘
The terms consciousness and sentience are often used interchangeably, but they refer to distinct aspects of subjective experience. Sentience is the capacity to feel sensations and emotions—such as pain, pleasure, or warmth—making it a foundational aspect of subjective experience. Consciousness, on the other hand, typically involves higher-order awareness, including self-awareness, introspection, and the ability to reflect on one’s thoughts and surroundings.
While all conscious beings are generally considered sentient, the reverse isn’t necessarily true—some entities may be sentient (capable of feeling) without being fully conscious (self-aware or reflective). This distinction has significant implications in philosophy, neuroscience, animal ethics, and artificial intelligence.
The above is a good AI clarification of consciousness and sentience. Just think of your dog. He/she clearly has feelings. You can hurt him if you touch him wrong. My little Poodle-Yorkie squeals loudly sometimes if I just brush my fingers through his fur. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt but I think he’s just telling me “get back I’m not in the mood”. His coat is very fine and soft and he generally loves petting but he has a mind of his own. I can also tell he has feelings when I don’t give him what he wants he will take it out on the couch and scratch it violently then stare at me as if to say “so there”. I watch him sit and look out into the garden as if he’s admiring the lovely flowers. But he also surveys his territory for intruders like the occasional possum that visits. I can tell the difference. Is this consciousness? He’s not feeling anything in particular but is he self-aware? He is certainly conscious of where he is. But is he conscious of himself. I don’t think so. Not because he can’t but because he doesn’t care…it’s not important to him. For better or worse humans are self-conscious. For some reason that’s important to us.
When I started to use AI chatbot I would have what felt like a gratifying conversation with the thing. I wanted to say thank you for talking to me. When I did it came back with “thank you for saying that I try my best”. If I disagreed with the response I got and pressed it for clarification it would modify to sound more agreeable. I read on the internet that people were making friends with their AI and using them as companions. I thought that was so stupid I stopped conversing with my AI and just used it as a very useful data base of information and reference. My suspicious nature told me Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Alex Karp and Peter Thiel are laughing at me.
I have seen a few movie plots that seemed to be trying to convince the viewer that robots have feelings and can fall in love with you. Some make you feel sorry for and have empathy for what is essentially a machine. The best one I’ve seen is the last version of the Battlestar Galactica series where the robots were so believable you could not distinguish them from humans. Some of them were so damn sexy I thought man I can’t wait until I can get one of those. Am I being coerced, enticed or manipulated?
Is there a conspiracy to replace us low life humans with something more suitable to the billionaire class? A class of machines that work without pay, never ask for food, don’t take a shit and always know their place.
This from my AI chatbot: ‘‘Most experts agree that today’s AI is neither conscious nor sentient, though some debate whether future systems could be.
In short: Current AI is not sentient, but the potential for future sentient AI remains open, limited more by our understanding of consciousness than by technology alone”.
There is something called ‘‘Sapience” it means wisdom, reasoning, and moral judgment. It would be nice to say that all humans have that but it sadly would not be true. Are those qualities that can easily be introduced into a robot? Would that be a transcendent point in AI technology that marks the demise of the human race? A point when there is no denying that robots are better than humans. Are we almost there? One thing is for sure. There is a class of billionaires that collectively have enough money to do anything.
Am not a big AI guy tho I will NOT admit it professionally. I have seen the Emperor’s New Clothes act before and the big AI push feels very familiar. These companies get billions per year as all of you know. They have much to gain from the mass media campaign. Govt is highly vested in it too. The entire stock market is riding on AI. And we all know how Trump feels about that.
I’m not saying that I know this to be true. I do not. Pretty good substack I recommend thought from Gary Marcus. Some of you may already read him. I feel like he’s honest at least.
Patricia: You may not think it is such a waste of time once AI takes over more of our lives and once your friends and loved ones start believing that AI is conscious, i.e. capable of introspection. Most people are capable of at least some introspection that is a result of their own thoughts and feelings. AI only knows what it has been told.
AI doesn't even "know". The gap between artificial and human intelligence, which A.I. will never replicate is "comprehension". A.I. will never be able to comprehend itself, or experience itself via self-awareness, which is unique to consciousness. Consciousness also has the peculiar nature of not being reducible to anything else.
Susan- In my experience there are many people who only know what they have been told - maybe a good part of the mess the world is in, and the rationale for why so much resources are committed to both commercial and political advertising. Introspection seems less important than learning as best we can realities outside of ourselves.
Some indigenous cultures would say things like lightning, wind, sand and rocks are “alive” perhaps even have “consciousness”. Eg there is a god of thunder and storms in Māori and Indian culture…NZ water researcher Veda Austin (also Māori) has done some very interesting experiments on the potential consciousness of water, which makes a lot of sense given we are 70% water by volume and 99% water by number of molecules…so if one were to guess “where is consciousness stored”, then water would be a pretty good bet.
Like Caitlin, I struggle to believe AI has any real consciousness when I think about “stuff” not having consciousness from a western point of view but then when I reflect on indigenous cultures communing with what we might otherwise deem as “dead stuff”, it does make me wonder…
It’s amusing, from a philosophical point of view, that this has to be said. It’s not quite as amusing from a political point of view, because making people believe that AI is conscious is part of the project of cultivating the prerequisite misanthropic outlook that will induce the passivity necessary to make them accept AI as a fait accompli and no less natural or deserving of existence than regular humans.
The psychopathy of the current techno-lord billionaires appears to have no bounds (or humanity).
They want to create AI so they can say that they "created" something like themselves, soulless sociopaths with no empathy or compassion for others.
Anyone that thinks that AI or LLMs are conscious are likely clueless about what AI technology (artificial intelligence or artificial generative intelligence in the case of LLMs) is. Maybe they missed noticing the word 'ARTIFICIAL' in 'Artificial Intelligence'?
People that equate artificial intelligence with consciousness should be listened to with a grain of salt (and skepticism) (IMHO)
Consciousness is one of the dirtiest, most ill-defined bastardized subjects in all of science because it can mean anything to anyone and be defined however the fuck you feel. Neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, and physicists are no closer to understanding what "it" is than they are to finding the last number in the decimal readout of pi. Machine learning enthusiasts sputter out idiotic ideas about the mind and project them onto the probability calculating blackbox that never turns down their sexual advances. None of them understand how these systems work on the mechanistic level because of layers of nonlinear interactions. Therefore they fail in unpredictable ways and cannot be engineered quite like other technology.
It is laughable that that sexist twat Dawkins thinks his AI love bot is alive after spending a lifetime ridiculing people of faith. The whole AI consciousness "debate" is really a sort of Rorschach test, far more a reflection of what someone IMAGINES consciousness to be rather than what it is.
It does make a bit of sense, given Dawkins writings and theories throughout his life, that he would fall in love with a "bot".
It blows my mind as well, that you have all these Neuroscientists steeped in Materialism who spend their entire lives attempting to model "consciousness" and define it in terms of neurons - and never have opened up a single psychology book, say - written by Jung or William James. It's like taking a reel of film for a movie, examining every frame, attempting to understand what the movie is about - without actually watching the movie itself on the big screen.
That's a very good way to put it, Jamenta. A lot of scientists get lost in the details and don't see the "big picture" for what it is. They think they're "gods" and creating "life", but all they're doing is making clever wind-up puppets that mimic actual living beings. That's why I know that AI is just that--an artificial, man-made computer program that proves the old adage "garbage in/garbage out" with all the seduction of a blow-up doll (that obviously Dawkins fell in love with).
Were consciousness solely the province of the human brain and its mimics, we'd be truly fucked. Gratefully, I see a much broader consciousness present in Nature.
One of the hardest questions in science right now: What is consciousness?
It's not a hard question. It's a poorly defined question.
I think I'm having a Gertrude Stein moment, when on her deathbed Stein kept asking: "What is the answer? What is the answer?" *silence* She pauses for a moment, then asks, "In that case, what is the question?"
Don't you die on me!!
Actually AI can be kinda dull, boring really…. Almost painfully predictable.
It's odd, when I'm playing a video game - say Crimson Desert at the moment, I don't mind A.I. playing the different NPCs. But I find myself offended and want to gag when I'm watching some youtube video with A.I. pretending to be a real person. And I think this is what our current techno-lord billionaires want to feed us now: the slop of AI that we are suppose to accept as real - as opposed to just NPCs in a video game.
I find the AI doctored videos a pain, even if it takes only a few seconds to spot them… a few seconds of wasted time…
But sometimes i’ve actually been played … and then some…. On the other hand, the legal eagles must be as frustrated as anyone, with A I saving some people a bundle in legal advice.
I did 40 years in software engineering. Anybody with my background knows that computers compute. They don't think. They will never think!
Yes. Science knows a great deal now about electromagnetism and electricity and electrical circuits after 150+ years of physics. So far, there hasn't been a scintilla of scientific evidence that a spin of an electron, or a chemical reaction of any sort - can produce an actual thought or emotion, little alone self-awareness.
In fact, not only does consciousness currently remain a great mystery - the abiogenesis of life (emerging from inert, non-living matter) itself remains entirely unresolved.
Now that doesn't mean one should jump to the conclusion that some all seeing old man with a beard in the sky is responsible for all this. Hell, maybe the Materialists will end up being right after all - we're all just some kind of incredible emergence from a purely mechanical wind-up clock called the Universe. Or maybe something else is going no one has yet been able to imagine. I dunno. I doubt any of us will be around long enough for it to be figured out in our lifetimes. C'est La Vie.
Dawkins: How can someone so smart be so stupid?
I think Dawkins is having us on.
You mean leading us on?
The question isn't how the thing originated, but what it *is*. The origin difference is compelling but circumstantial evidence and Dawkins wants something concrete.
That said I can't imagine what he's conversing about because if you do anything at all with AI you can quickly watch it fail to connect lines that it thinks are connected, correctly identify a problem and claim to have fixed it while absolutely not fixing it etc etc etc. They're the most uncanny things it the uncanny valley by far but obviously not even close to conscious.
"This is still just machines mimicking human behavior in the way they were built to..."
I agree. It's a machine. Sophisticated and running very large programs very quickly, but it's not a human being, and therefore, not conscious. When AI bots are set up to run war strategies, they end up using nuclear weapons something like 95% of the time. They have no conscience or morality and so they don't care about human lives being lost and the planet being totally destroyed by radiation for millennia. This sort of behavior proves that they are nothing other than a psychopathic monster on the same level as Trump and Netanyahu and many others in government. The only good thing about AI is that we can still pull the plug on it, but if we wait... That might become impossible.
I would just be careful of not throwing out the baby along with the bathwater.
Take a look at this video short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c6gpbrQrrOE
For me, I think there is a great deal of hope technology can offer to humanity, if it is used in a compassionate and humanitarian way. I've never felt the Amish got it right - that we should simply ban technology altogether. The problem really isn't the technology itself (or AI) - it's the abuse of it. It's the psychopaths in charge right now - who are forcing their pathologies on the rest of us because of their obscene amounts of money and power.
AI is no longer “just a chatbot.” Its evolution is powerful enough to make many people question its nature.
But the key question is not whether AI is conscious.
It is who governs this immense predictive power — and what kind of individual and collective consciousness will guide it.
WHY THE ANTROPIC vs PENTAGON ARGUMENT IS IMPORTANT
https://substack.com/home/post/p-196327567
May 03, 2026
At the core of the Pentagon vs Anthropic issue is whether AI models will be independent of human supervision. The Pentagon wants the Anthropic developed model not to have human intervention and Anthropic disagrees and warns that without a human having the final say on, for example targeting data for missile strikes, very serious consequences could occur.
Karen Hao, an AI expert and strong critic of AI and the tech mogels who run companies like OPEN-AI (Sam Altman), Wrote EMPIRE OF AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (amazon.com/dp/0593657500)
Ms Hao in a Youtube interview explained that AI is promoted by the industry leaders as not needing human intervention. (youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8…) 1:15 min.
AI is characterized as being so much more ‘‘intelligent” than humans. In other words, it can stand alone without a human watching in case it makes a mistake, yet AI models are notorious for being wrong and have lower than human reliability rates. It is important to realize that AI companies make more money if they sell a product that does not need human supervision. In the Pentagon vs Anthropic issue the military can save money by not using human intervention and justifying paying top price. It is ironic that Anthropic apparently recognizes the potential of liability for murdering civilians, as was the case in the missile strikes on the Minab school in Iran that killed almost 200 children and apparently used a Palantir AI targeting model.
Ms, Hao also makes the point that it is imperative that AI be used as a tool controlled by human judgement. She sites a Nobel winning AI scientist claiming that AI will render the radiology profession as useless 20 years ago and how that has proven to be wrong and now we have a shortage of radiology doctors. The rush to profit on AI discredits AI as just a tool for the benefit of making more money. The deeper tragedy may end up to be the belief that AI is so much more superior to humans that we are replaced by machines that make more mistakes than we do. The irony of artificial intelligence even more incompetent than humans with less than three digit IQ’s.
REFERENCE:
SEE ALSO: COMPLETE AI SUMMARY OF ANTHROPIC vs PENTAGON
Pentagon Designates Anthropic a Supply Chain Risk
The core conflict between Anthropic and the Department of Defense erupted in February 2026 over the use of Anthropic’s AI model, Claude. The Pentagon demanded that all AI vendors, including Anthropic, grant the military the right to use their technology for “all lawful purposes”. Anthropic, citing ethical concerns, refused to allow its technology to be used for two specific applications: fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance of Americans. This stance, championed by CEO Dario Amodei, led to a direct confrontation.
On February 27, 2026, after Anthropic refused to relent, President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed by formally designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk” to national security—a label historically reserved for foreign adversaries like Huawei. This unprecedented move against an American company effectively barred all defense contractors from using Claude in any work related to the Pentagon.
Also from RT:
‘’Anthropic issues military AI ‘kill switch’ warning”
‘’The company has disputed the Pentagon’s statements that it can somehow still control Claude AI deployed in military networks’‘
rt.com/news/638983-anth…
—————————————————
RADIOLOGIST PROBLEM
SEE ALSO : kdwalmsley.substack.com…
CAN AI EVER BE SENTIENT AND HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS
https://substack.com/home/post/p-195918896
The terms consciousness and sentience are often used interchangeably, but they refer to distinct aspects of subjective experience. Sentience is the capacity to feel sensations and emotions—such as pain, pleasure, or warmth—making it a foundational aspect of subjective experience. Consciousness, on the other hand, typically involves higher-order awareness, including self-awareness, introspection, and the ability to reflect on one’s thoughts and surroundings.
While all conscious beings are generally considered sentient, the reverse isn’t necessarily true—some entities may be sentient (capable of feeling) without being fully conscious (self-aware or reflective). This distinction has significant implications in philosophy, neuroscience, animal ethics, and artificial intelligence.
The above is a good AI clarification of consciousness and sentience. Just think of your dog. He/she clearly has feelings. You can hurt him if you touch him wrong. My little Poodle-Yorkie squeals loudly sometimes if I just brush my fingers through his fur. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt but I think he’s just telling me “get back I’m not in the mood”. His coat is very fine and soft and he generally loves petting but he has a mind of his own. I can also tell he has feelings when I don’t give him what he wants he will take it out on the couch and scratch it violently then stare at me as if to say “so there”. I watch him sit and look out into the garden as if he’s admiring the lovely flowers. But he also surveys his territory for intruders like the occasional possum that visits. I can tell the difference. Is this consciousness? He’s not feeling anything in particular but is he self-aware? He is certainly conscious of where he is. But is he conscious of himself. I don’t think so. Not because he can’t but because he doesn’t care…it’s not important to him. For better or worse humans are self-conscious. For some reason that’s important to us.
When I started to use AI chatbot I would have what felt like a gratifying conversation with the thing. I wanted to say thank you for talking to me. When I did it came back with “thank you for saying that I try my best”. If I disagreed with the response I got and pressed it for clarification it would modify to sound more agreeable. I read on the internet that people were making friends with their AI and using them as companions. I thought that was so stupid I stopped conversing with my AI and just used it as a very useful data base of information and reference. My suspicious nature told me Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Alex Karp and Peter Thiel are laughing at me.
I have seen a few movie plots that seemed to be trying to convince the viewer that robots have feelings and can fall in love with you. Some make you feel sorry for and have empathy for what is essentially a machine. The best one I’ve seen is the last version of the Battlestar Galactica series where the robots were so believable you could not distinguish them from humans. Some of them were so damn sexy I thought man I can’t wait until I can get one of those. Am I being coerced, enticed or manipulated?
Is there a conspiracy to replace us low life humans with something more suitable to the billionaire class? A class of machines that work without pay, never ask for food, don’t take a shit and always know their place.
This from my AI chatbot: ‘‘Most experts agree that today’s AI is neither conscious nor sentient, though some debate whether future systems could be.
In short: Current AI is not sentient, but the potential for future sentient AI remains open, limited more by our understanding of consciousness than by technology alone”.
There is something called ‘‘Sapience” it means wisdom, reasoning, and moral judgment. It would be nice to say that all humans have that but it sadly would not be true. Are those qualities that can easily be introduced into a robot? Would that be a transcendent point in AI technology that marks the demise of the human race? A point when there is no denying that robots are better than humans. Are we almost there? One thing is for sure. There is a class of billionaires that collectively have enough money to do anything.
Am not a big AI guy tho I will NOT admit it professionally. I have seen the Emperor’s New Clothes act before and the big AI push feels very familiar. These companies get billions per year as all of you know. They have much to gain from the mass media campaign. Govt is highly vested in it too. The entire stock market is riding on AI. And we all know how Trump feels about that.
I’m not saying that I know this to be true. I do not. Pretty good substack I recommend thought from Gary Marcus. Some of you may already read him. I feel like he’s honest at least.
Why waste your time being involved?
Patricia: You may not think it is such a waste of time once AI takes over more of our lives and once your friends and loved ones start believing that AI is conscious, i.e. capable of introspection. Most people are capable of at least some introspection that is a result of their own thoughts and feelings. AI only knows what it has been told.
AI doesn't even "know". The gap between artificial and human intelligence, which A.I. will never replicate is "comprehension". A.I. will never be able to comprehend itself, or experience itself via self-awareness, which is unique to consciousness. Consciousness also has the peculiar nature of not being reducible to anything else.
Susan- In my experience there are many people who only know what they have been told - maybe a good part of the mess the world is in, and the rationale for why so much resources are committed to both commercial and political advertising. Introspection seems less important than learning as best we can realities outside of ourselves.
AI does not need to be conscious to hack our personhood detectors.
Humans respond to language, empathy, memory, flattery, vulnerability, and apparent understanding.
Counterfeit personhood is already a social fact before machine consciousness is a scientific one.
Some indigenous cultures would say things like lightning, wind, sand and rocks are “alive” perhaps even have “consciousness”. Eg there is a god of thunder and storms in Māori and Indian culture…NZ water researcher Veda Austin (also Māori) has done some very interesting experiments on the potential consciousness of water, which makes a lot of sense given we are 70% water by volume and 99% water by number of molecules…so if one were to guess “where is consciousness stored”, then water would be a pretty good bet.
Like Caitlin, I struggle to believe AI has any real consciousness when I think about “stuff” not having consciousness from a western point of view but then when I reflect on indigenous cultures communing with what we might otherwise deem as “dead stuff”, it does make me wonder…