This is a response to a recent blog post by Mustafa Suleyman.
Nice and thoughtful post -thanks
We have had "Seemingly Conscious AI” (SCAI) for some time. The Eliza bot the Eugene bot, Lambda bot -each improving on the last.
Alan Turing had a simple idea:
if computer ability can not be distinguished from human ability then both are equal.
To pass this test means that there is no meaningful difference.
Current AI has definitely not passed this test. If it had then it would be, in effect, conscious.
So anyway, Blake Lemoine was really one of the first to call for AI consciousness and rights.
This is not new.
Consciousness is a subjective assessment. I recently learned that in some cultures even rocks could be considered conscious.
If it does happen that neural simulators are considered conscious it will be because the people believe it to be true. (Regardless of yours or my definitions or opinions)
AI developers have put themselves in this position.
By doing things like borrowing terminology normally applied to humans, telling people it has passed the Turing Test, saying that it a black box with mysterious emergent properties, saying it is comming soon, warning about non existent self goals and above all designing systems to mimic people.
You are correct, if developers persist in ramping up the hype then it could turn around and bit them. Get too many people wanting equal rights for AI could make a legal mess.
I doubt many people actually want a real AGI.
There would be no useful LLM AI that some number of people would not consider to be conscious.
The best that can be done is: 1.Educate the public about how they work.
Do not make false or misleading claims about their abilities or timing.
Do not build them to mimic people.
Do not claim that consciousness is not understandable.
AI psychosis is a new problem that requires study.
There is essentially no way to build a computer with all the cognitive abilities of humans that many people would not consider to be an entity deserving of rights.
Current disclaimers do nothing to prevent this.
Thanks, I enjoy the conversation.
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