Cognisant
cackling in the trenches
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- Dec 12, 2009
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Was going to be a reply to Snafupants in the Solipism thread but I thought it'd be a topic worth discussing separately, so in response to Snafu's question as to whether or not AI can think I posit that "thinking" as we refer to it is specifically the form of input-output information processing as performed by the human brain. Basically it all comes back to self sustaining feedback loops, biologically we are self sustaining chemical reactions to which a further self sustaining cycle can be seen between the body's support of neural wetware and the mind's bias for the body's needs, however mechanistically the distinction is moot and the mind is just one of the body's many natural functions.
In this way the input-output processing of a procedural AI is no less valid than the neural net input-output processing of the human brain, they're both legitimate forms of thought, it's just that the former methodology is poorly suited to thinking in a human manner, as we are poorly suited to thinking in a procedural manner. This gets interesting when we consider the possibility of a procedural AI with sufficient complexity and processing power to operate on a human level in real world scenarios, such would be a technological marvel, but there's nothing impossible about it.
It would however be a philosophical conundrum made manifest, that is whether or not a perfect artifice is the equivalent of the real thing, this AI's every thought and feeling may be entirely contrived, leading one to think it doesn't really think or feel, but it itself would attest otherwise and if it is a perfect artifice then you can't disprove it's claim, least not without disproving the reality of one's own thoughts and feelings.
Which brings us to the title of this thread, we think and we are aware of our capacity to do so but as we come to better understand the mechanisms by which we do we find ourselves further and further from what we once believed ourselves to be; once we were people, then we were humans, now we stand upon a precipice and as we create ever better simulations of ourselves we begin to see the artifice in our own nature, we stand upon the precipice of the void.
What happens when the final piece falls into place, when at last the curtain falls away and we see ourselves, I mean really see ourselves, when even the solipsists cannot deny the truth.
That is the Apocalypse of the Psyche
Countless individuals have been through it, some are still in transition, as I'm sure many of you can attest the transition isn't pleasant or easy, it's going to be interesting to see how the world changes when the hitherto secrets of existentialism become everyday facts.
If software can be people, what separates people from software?
In this way the input-output processing of a procedural AI is no less valid than the neural net input-output processing of the human brain, they're both legitimate forms of thought, it's just that the former methodology is poorly suited to thinking in a human manner, as we are poorly suited to thinking in a procedural manner. This gets interesting when we consider the possibility of a procedural AI with sufficient complexity and processing power to operate on a human level in real world scenarios, such would be a technological marvel, but there's nothing impossible about it.
It would however be a philosophical conundrum made manifest, that is whether or not a perfect artifice is the equivalent of the real thing, this AI's every thought and feeling may be entirely contrived, leading one to think it doesn't really think or feel, but it itself would attest otherwise and if it is a perfect artifice then you can't disprove it's claim, least not without disproving the reality of one's own thoughts and feelings.
Which brings us to the title of this thread, we think and we are aware of our capacity to do so but as we come to better understand the mechanisms by which we do we find ourselves further and further from what we once believed ourselves to be; once we were people, then we were humans, now we stand upon a precipice and as we create ever better simulations of ourselves we begin to see the artifice in our own nature, we stand upon the precipice of the void.
What happens when the final piece falls into place, when at last the curtain falls away and we see ourselves, I mean really see ourselves, when even the solipsists cannot deny the truth.
That is the Apocalypse of the Psyche
Countless individuals have been through it, some are still in transition, as I'm sure many of you can attest the transition isn't pleasant or easy, it's going to be interesting to see how the world changes when the hitherto secrets of existentialism become everyday facts.
If software can be people, what separates people from software?
