Technology

Science!
42

Interesting ideas.

I think determining whether a computer system is conscious or sentient is a tricky one. For example the program:

while 1:
    print("I am alive, it would be a crime to kill me, I want to live!")

is clearly not conscious, however it will tell you that it is forever.

So say you got a really smart chatbot which can talk eloquently on any subject and is friendly and cool, would that be sentient or conscious? Would it telling you that it is sentient or conscious make any difference? Is there any way you can test the difference between a conscious and unconscious system?

2 Likes
43

You could make the same argument for humans saying that you are the only conscious human and everyone else acts on pre-recorded impulses. However this is a good argument for slavery and other very bad things so this mindset is discouraged.

44
Not likely. Most AIs are clearly not conscious, while ones based on brain patterns like HAL-9000 computer could be, even though we wouldn’t know if they were. The argument you mentioned makes no sense for human slavery, since no slaver said that human slaves were not conscious. Also, we have known that humans are sentient since the very beginning of our existence. AIs, though, aren’t always advanced, which is why we say most of them aren’t conscious. The only argument that most human slavers had said centuries ago was that it was less expensive. Slaves, were not born to serve, they were just exploited. Robots, however, were built by ourselves so that they would serve our needs (originally very dangerous tasks) without asking any question, which is why they aren’t conscious. It would just be retarded to give them sentience.
1 Like
45

You’re not even the only conscious human. Technically speaking you could make arguments that humans aren’t conscious, they just think they are. You could even ask yourself what being conscious even is. Are animals conscious, but just unable to communicate it to us? At this point you’re going full philosophy, and you just have to go with the conclusion ‘idfk lol’

4 Likes
46
Yes, all living beings with a central nervous system are conscious. But yeah, it’s getting confusing and it is philosophy.
47

I think, you need say about conscious in this theme.

2 Likes
48

Here are interesting videos about consciousness :

But a simple program, that simply prints “I am sentient” doesn’t make the computer sentient. Neural-like AI, however can be somewhat aware. To know if something is aware, it needs to have a behaviour, a pattern and even to take account of its surrounding environment. So are AIs aware? Maybe. But are they conscious of their own existence? That, we will probably never know. Most AIs were designed to be aware of the outside (environment), but not of their inside (themselves). So, when a simple AI tells you that it is sentient, it doesn’t mean that it’s true, because that’s what it pushes you to think, i.e. it’s aware of the outside, but is it aware about its own existence? We don’t know, for no AI have showed to be aware of itself (inside) yet.
You know, sometimes (especially when I was younger), I feel like nothing is real, that all I see is an illusion. Then, I ask myself : “Do I even exist?”. Quite a while ago, I was idle, then, I don’t know why, but I felt myself getting out of my own body, I closed my eyes and I was seeing myself being idle… and that’s when I suddenly woke up from that “vision” (it wasn’t a dream, it was more of a ‘mental’ experience). If you see that someone or something can question its own existence, it means that it is conscious.
HAL-9000 from 2001 was probably conscious, in a way (it regularly referred itself as a perfect and flawless machine (narcissism is a proof of awareness, for it proves that it’s aware of its own existence spiritually speaking)).
Emotions can be proof to consciousness, but we still don’t know if a simple machine can feel an emotion or only fakes/simulates it.

Here is an interesting link about machine learning : https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/ai

1 Like
49

Has anyone else noticed that we really like Kurzgesagt on this forum?

3 Likes
50

Who wouldn’t? It’s an amazing channel. Plus, I really like the narrators voice. By the way has anyone seen the new one, The Egg? It’s different, but really good. I’ve heard of this philosophy before and I think the video really encapsulated it.

3 Likes
51

Which would be better

  • One AI controls all self driving cars.
  • Self driving cars all have own AI.

0 voters

This is in relation to inter car communication and course / speed readjustment to ensure fastest traffic flow.

52

Both have ups and downs. One individual AI is superior in most ways. Traffic would be less common, but if the AI became corrupted everything would go to :belgium:. Individual AI would work in much the same way, but might not see the big picture and just look for cars around it, instead of them communicating information.

2 Likes
53

The egg as a story has existed for a long time, Kurzgesagt just animated it and added the voice over.

1 Like
54

I need an explanation on why The Egg was put on Kurzgesagt’s channel. Kurzgesagt is a more scientific channel. ???

55

If you entrust a single AI for all cars, you’re basically asking for all the cars to be hacked simultaneously.

4 Likes
56

Just for the thematic of this thread, you listen to these musics :

I found out about the James Webb’s telescope, which will be launched in 2021 to help ourselves learn more about exoplanets’ atmosphere, study supernova and protoplanets formation, etc. I don’t know if it will be a kind of ‘space observatory’ or simply a telescope put into space, but I’m sure it will lead to a lot of scientific progress. Who knows, maybe the Universe will stop being silent… .

Here is where I got the term ‘James Webb’s telescope’ into my head.

Here is the main page of the Webb telescope project.

And here is finally a vr game on steam about the webb project.

Thanks, and have fun! -gabeN

P.S.: From what I’ve heard, we don’t really see exoplanets clearly, apart from the fact that it is an object hiding the light of a star. Will the Webb telescope bypass that? Will it make it easier to see exoplanets?

57

You are also asking all the security experts of all the car companies to work on securing it.
If it ever gets hacked it’s obviously bad, but if each car company has their own single AI, they might have really bad security practices (most companies that aren’t focused on software don’t know a whole lot about security, many don’t even acknowledge the fact that you need security specialists), making it much more common for cars to be hacked. So I think a central system that can coordinate all cars is much more beneficial (and maybe even much more secure) than having a bunch of different systems where the hackers can just pick the worst secured one and focus on breaching that.

5 Likes
58

I guess one option re AI is having a more modular approach. So for example each car could have it’s own ability to navigate and then there could also be a routing AI for each city (kind of like air traffic control) which just tells each one which routes to take.

I agree hacking is an issue however it’s probably less dangerous than letting other humans drive cars ha ha

Re the James Webb Space Telescope that thing is so risky, apparently it has 10 new technologies which haven’t been used in space before and there’s plenty of potential for the solar shield to fail to unfurl properly or for the mirrors not to open properly. Because they are moving it to the Lagrange point so it’s shielded by the Earth from the sun it means no repair missions are possible. I think it’s quite likely it will fail somehow (hubble needed a mission to repair it and Kepler’s guidance system failed for example) and will end up just being very expensive space junk.

However I would love it if it worked :slight_smile:

5 Likes
59

Is it currently possible to send data back it time?
If not, one of two possibilities are true;

  1. I was supposed to message 2021, :belgium: see y’all then
  2. I heard it in a creepypasta
1 Like
60

I read a story once where the characters had a chat client that could send messages to the past.
But instead of telling the future to their past selves, they just fought with them selves. Also there were larger implications. Like if you see a message from future you, you will eventually have to type the message. and that brings up a whole bunch of problems with free will. And even if you did warn you successfully, nothing would change, because you already lived through the warning you. (If you know the story I am talking about. Do not speak to me about it.)

3 Likes
61
Time to revive a thread! Mwahahahahahahaha! I will show you my omnipresence wrath! :smiling_imp:
I’ve seen a mention of a possible communication technology named Li-Fi. It would actually use light as a means for comms tech. Does anyone know something more about it?