Really Chiang?
Alright. What is consciousness? Please provide a definition that somehow encompasses all humans and excludes all current AI.
I’ll wait.
Please don't fulminate on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This isn't an example of fulminating, please don't incorrectly quote the hacker news guidelines at people. We strive for curious discussion here.
An example of fulminating would be: How dare you accuse him of fulminating? That is the most ass backwards moderating I have ever seen! Do you even know the definition of the word? Who paid you to call him out?
His comment may be sarcastic but it is not "fulminating".
Consciousness excludes all current AI because all current AI is just autocomplete over the corpus of human text.
It's just a word machine. There are no thoughts. It cannot be conscious. How is this even up for debate in any way whatsoever? I do not understand how people can believe this. Is this not a site for software engineers?
Suppose there is an autocomplete that consistently produces correct factorizations of 2048 bit primes. Do you still think its "merely" autocomplete or has it found some deep mathematical understanding of number theory internally? Would you maintain the same belief if it begins breaking encryption? This autocomplete argument is so strange, it betrays a complete lack of understanding of information theoretic and probability considerations.