I don’t really think so. I am not really sure why, but my gut feeling is that being good at impersonating a human being in text conversation doesn’t mean you’re closer to creating a real AI.
I don’t really think so. I am not really sure why, but my gut feeling is that being good at impersonating a human being in text conversation doesn’t mean you’re closer to creating a real AI.
Do we know for sure that our architecture is the same? How do you prove that we are really the same? For all I know I could be plugged to a simulation :P
If there was a way to test consciousness then we would be able to prove that we are at least interacting with other conscious beings… but since we can’t test that, it could theoretically be possible that we (I? you?) are alone, interacting with a big non-sentient and interconnected AI, designed to make us “feel” like we are part of a community.
I know it’s trippy to think that but… well… from a philosophical point of view, isn’t that true?
I find solipsism isn’t really a useful framework to use, and we have to go on the assumption that the world we perceive from our senses is real. We can never prove it, but acting on this basis is the only logical approach available to us.
We know that our architecture is the same because we’ve studied the brain for a long time now. We understand how natural selection, genetics, and evolution work. This gives us a very strong basis to argue that our brains do indeed have the same basic function.
Oh but I agree that assuming our reality is solipsist isn’t useful for practical purposes. I’m just highlighting the fact that we do not know. We don’t have enough data preciselly because there are many things related to consciousness that we cannot test.
Personally I think that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and acts like a duck then it probably is a duck (and that’s what the studies you are referencing generally need to assume). Which is why, in my opinion, the turing test is a valid approach (and other tests with the same philosophy).
Disregarding turing-like tests and at the same time assuming that only humans are capable of having “a soul” is imho harder to defend, because it requires additional assumptions. I think it’s easier to assume that either duck-likes are ducks or that we are in a simulation. Personally I’m skeptical on both and I just side with the duck test because it’s the more pragmatic approach.
I agree that we should always give systems that act as if they’re conscious and self aware . the benefit of the doubt. That’s the only ethical approach in my opinion.
As you note, we still lack the understanding of how consciousness arises and until we develop such understanding we can only guess whether a system is conscious or not based on its external behavior.