Connectionists: Weird beliefs about consciousness
Stephen José Hanson
jose at rubic.rutgers.edu
Tue Feb 15 07:18:52 EST 2022
Mostly from an experimental point of view. Neurologists study
consciousness in patients in comas for example, as it seems clear that
while we are asleep or knocked out through anesthesia or coma, we are
not conscious.
Self-awareness is also a form of consciousness in that we are paying
attention to ourselves and can self-report-- emotional awareness, some
individuals are not aware of their own states and others are exquisitely
aware.. and so on..
Mostly these are explicit (in the sense of learning/memory) as the
individuals can provide some verbal evidence of their self-awareness
(but brain imaging is plausible here as a measure).
Obviously more difficult call in an AI robot, roomba or an oyster.
Steve
On 2/15/22 5:34 AM, Adam Kosiorek wrote:
> Stephen,
>
> It's curious to me that wake-sleep cycles should be included in the
> notion of consciousness, in the sense that I see no problems with a
> conscious creature that does not sleep. Could you tell me a little
> more about your thinking here?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Adam R. Kosiorek
>
>
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 at 07:12, Stephen José Hanson
> <jose at rubic.rutgers.edu <mailto:jose at rubic.rutgers.edu>> wrote:
>
> Gary, these weren't criterion. Let me try again.
>
> I wasn't talking about wake-sleep cycles... I was talking about
> being awake or asleep and the transition that ensues..
>
> Rooba's don't sleep.. they turn off, I have two of them. They
> turn on once (1) their batteries are recharged (2) a timer has
> been set for being turned on.
>
> GPT3 is essentially a CYC that actually works.. by reading
> Wikipedia (which of course is a terribly biased sample).
>
> I was indicating the difference between implicit and explicit
> learning/problem solving. Implicit learning/memory is unconscious
> and similar to a habit.. (good or bad).
>
> I believe that when someone says "is gpt3 conscious?" they are
> asking: is gpt3 self-aware? Roombas know about vacuuming and they
> are unconscious.
>
> S
>
> On 2/14/22 12:45 PM, Gary Marcus wrote:
>> Stephen,
>>
>> On criteria (1)-(3), a high-end, mapping-equippped Roomba is far
>> more plausible as a consciousness than GPT-3.
>>
>> 1. The Roomba has a clearly defined wake-sleep cycle; GPT does not.
>> 2. Roomba makes choices based on an explicit representation of
>> its location relative to a mapped space. GPT lacks any consistent
>> reflection of self; eg if you ask it, as I have, if you are you
>> person, and then ask if it is a computer, it’s liable to say yes
>> to both, showing no stable knowledge of self.
>> 3. Roomba has explicit, declarative knowledge eg of walls and
>> other boundaries, as well its own location. GPT has no
>> systematically interrogable explicit representations.
>>
>> All this is said with tongue lodged partway in cheek, but I
>> honestly don’t see what criterion would lead anyone to believe
>> that GPT is a more plausible candidate for consciousness than any
>> other AI program out there.
>>
>> ELIZA long ago showed that you could produce fluent speech that
>> was mildly contextually relevant, and even convincing to the
>> untutored; just because GPT is a better version of that trick
>> doesn’t mean it’s any more conscious.
>>
>> Gary
>>
>>> On Feb 14, 2022, at 08:56, Stephen José Hanson
>>> <jose at rubic.rutgers.edu> <mailto:jose at rubic.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> this is a great list of behavior..
>>>
>>> Some biologically might be termed reflexive, taxes, classically
>>> conditioned, implicit (memory/learning)... all however would not be
>>> conscious in the several senses: (1) wakefulness-- sleep (2)
>>> self aware (3) explicit/declarative.
>>>
>>> I think the term is used very loosely, and I believe what GPT3
>>> and other AI are hoping to show signs of is "self-awareness"..
>>>
>>> In response to : "why are you doing that?", "What are you
>>> doing now", "what will you be doing in 2030?"
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2/14/22 10:46 AM, Iam Palatnik wrote:
>>>> A somewhat related question, just out of curiosity.
>>>>
>>>> Imagine the following:
>>>>
>>>> - An automatic solar panel that tracks the position of the sun.
>>>> - A group of single celled microbes with phototaxis that follow
>>>> the sunlight.
>>>> - A jellyfish (animal without a brain) that follows/avoids the
>>>> sunlight.
>>>> - A cockroach (animal with a brain) that avoids the sunlight.
>>>> - A drone with onboard AI that flies to regions of more intense
>>>> sunlight to recharge its batteries.
>>>> - A human that dislikes sunlight and actively avoids it.
>>>>
>>>> Can any of these, beside the human, be said to be aware or
>>>> conscious of the sunlight, and why?
>>>> What is most relevant? Being a biological life form, having a
>>>> brain, being able to make decisions based on the environment?
>>>> Being taxonomically close to humans?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 12:06 PM Gary Marcus
>>>> <gary.marcus at nyu.edu <mailto:gary.marcus at nyu.edu>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Also true: Many AI researchers are very unclear about what
>>>> consciousness is and also very sure that ELIZA doesn’t have it.
>>>>
>>>> Neither ELIZA nor GPT-3 have
>>>> - anything remotely related to embodiment
>>>> - any capacity to reflect upon themselves
>>>>
>>>> Hypothesis: neither keyword matching nor tensor
>>>> manipulation, even at scale, suffice in themselves to
>>>> qualify for consciousness.
>>>>
>>>> - Gary
>>>>
>>>> > On Feb 14, 2022, at 00:24, Geoffrey Hinton
>>>> <geoffrey.hinton at gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:geoffrey.hinton at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > Many AI researchers are very unclear about what
>>>> consciousness is and also very sure that GPT-3 doesn’t have
>>>> it. It’s a strange combination.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
>>> --
> --
>
--
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