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Three reasons why "AI" is not conscious and perhaps never will be (www.nature.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Artificial-intelligence systems such as large language models (LLMs) can exhibit behaviour that seems strikingly intelligent. This has led many people, including some experts, to wonder whether these systems could have some form of consciousness — the capacity for subjective experience. However, we think that existing AI systems are not conscious, and that, along current trajectories of development, they are not likely to become conscious. Greater clarity about whether AI could become consciousness will be crucial as society grapples with the challenges posed by this increasingly powerful technology.

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[–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

Current AI is not conscious because it's an .exe file and a big database. Why do we need to always debate this?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    If AGI ever happens, it will be an executable (or a number of executables) with something closely resembling a database, because that's the only way an architecture built on symbolic logic can operate.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    because you can't prove that it is not conscious

    just like you can not prove that a person is conscious

    There's an accepted way to kill or not kill a person based on the way the brain reacts when you zap it with electricity but that doesn't prove consciousness

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  • [–] 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    LOL. "EXE file and a big database.". That's the most gross oversimplification I've seen since life was described as "bags of meat that do random things."

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  • [–] -1 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    (Also now true of fruit flies! So feel free to kill them all, they have no experiences.)

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    That is a pretty huge misunderstanding of what the fruit fly thing was. Researchers mapped how many neurons they had and which interacted with which others, but not the strength of those interactions or even how the interactions worked. People on the internet used this blank mapping as the “structure” for existing ML technologies and trained them to do random things. No actual fruit flies were simulated, and we are still a long long way from actually attempting that.

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