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haswell | on: Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang
If there's any reason to take seriously the idea that AI is conscious, we must then take seriously the idea that many other non-living things are conscious.

Unless the argument is that consciousness is an emergent property of complexity or information density, why would AI be any more or less conscious than my toaster?

It seems to me that it's far more likely that everything is conscious than it is that AI is somehow uniquely more conscious than other things.

krzat | parent | next
What makes us conscious anyway? As I write this sentence, my brain generates words and contracts specific muscles in my hands to type, but I don't really understand how. I'm just aware that it happens. Apparently I'm no aware of every single neuronal activity, so what I am aware of?
nomel | parent | next
Or, maybe consciousness is a spectrum, rather than a binary.
haswell | root | parent
Could be! I think the broader thought experiment is about examining why we think LLMs specifically might be conscious vs other complex systems, even if it is a spectrum.

For example, there’s a case to be made that the ecosystem we collectively exist in is far more complex than the largest LLM, but it’s currently less popular to debate “is the earth conscious?” or “is the universe conscious”, presumable because we can’t speak to those systems in human language.

I’m trying to tease out what I think is the likelihood that we tend to ascribe consciousness to AI for the same reasons we see faces in clouds. We’re biologically conditioned to recognize patterns that indicate “like us”, but I think a number of thought experiments point to either a) there’s no reason to believe AI is “conscious” or b) the conversation has to to be expanded beyond AI.

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dtj1123 | parent | next
The argument is that consciousness is an emergent property of a specific kind of complexity.
haswell | root | parent
But what kind of complexity is that? And why would we conclude that AI has it while other incredibly complex systems (e.g. earth’s habitats, the universe itself) does not?

I’m far more open to the idea that many systems are conscious than the idea that this current generation of LLMs is somehow special.

Lerc | parent | next
>If there's any reason to take seriously the idea that AI is conscious, we must then take seriously the idea that many other non-living things are conscious.

That, I believe is why the objection to AI exists, that conclusion is unacceptable.

It seems like we are experiencing "Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" all over again.

haswell | root | parent
I understand what you're getting at, but I think you may be misinterpreting me slightly.

I'm not outright dismissing the possibility that AI could be conscious; I'm saying that if we take the possibility that it is seriously, the conversation has to expand beyond AI. I'm not using this argument to conclude that it must therefore be absurd that AI could be conscious, just pointing out that the implications of AI being conscious would reach far beyond just AI. I'm mostly curious if people who find themselves comfortable with the idea that AI might be conscious also find themselves comfortable with the idea that other sufficiently complex systems might be.

Taylor's work was based on the premise that he found it absurd that women deserve the same rights as men. If my conclusion was: "I find it absurd that other things might be conscious, so it is also absurd that AI might be conscious", I think the comparison would be fair. But that's not what I'm getting at.

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