Should AI robots be given rights in the future?

[Moonbeam]

Caravaggio: Your quote of my earlier post in 122 is a very partial selection of what I said. You are trying to set up a straw man so that you may knock it down.

M: I don't actually understand what a straw man is. I probably would see that such an use would not be logical if it is the name of some sort of flawed argument, but I can never keep the names of those kinds of flaws in my head.

C: The difference between a Hellfire missile and a human (whether or not you like or despise the latter's particular ideology) is glaringly obvious. My dog could distinguish them, you know that you can.

M: I am trying to point to the things I think are the same about a biological machine running a program and an artificially created machine doing the same thing. Our consciousness does not include an awareness carbon on which our program runs so maybe the same would be true if it were all running on silicon. Consciousness has no reality that we can see. It is a phenomenon. I believe it must be awareness of being. Why can't a machine know that it exists. We are just such a machine. Our awareness isn't our brains, but is produced by our brains. It would seem that the function of awareness is to preserve our machinery and keep it alive. Aside from stimulus response mechanisms that function at an unconscious level, we are aware of a self in an environment. The self is just the machine in which the awareness dwells. We are just made of dead chemicals, dead chemicals that have the illusion of life.

C: You ask if my 'self awareness has a sense of running on a bio net.' I have no idea what you mean. If you are asking whether I interact with others, then "yes" I am doing it now, and so are you.

M: I guess I just didn't know how to convey the idea I intended. I meant that my self awareness does not include any sense that I am a machine running a consciousness program of some kind. I am not aware that my awareness is being caused by brain activity, or any information of the nature of that brain activity, where in the brain it is happening, or as a result of this or that neural connections. I do seem to have some limited ability to chose what I want to think about, but I have no idea why. Is it a result of a program that is built in or because I am program free? I have no sense that can tell me that I am aware of.

C: You ask,


No, but they are, every second of my life. If I was aware of them all the time my attention mechanism would be crowded out by irrelevant stimuli. (See work of Broadbent). But if I tread on a plank with a nail upturned in it, you bet I know which neurons are firing and where. The subconscious becomes suddenly very conscious, and it directs my action..'take foot off nail'.

You ask why I doubt that a human mind can be duplicated by a computer;...

Because no such thing has happened yet.

If you can show me a human-sized robot which can change a duvet cover, convince its human mate that it is also human, compose a symphony, give birth to a baby robot which bonds with both its parent robot and the human parent, can hold down a job, go hunting for grouse, cross the Antarctic and write a popular book about it, ....Fix a shelf then go for a beer with its pals and enjoy it, and know when the next beer is stale and complain, and get another one free. Change a wheel on the way back, tie a clove-hitch, castrate a piglet, cook dinner and enjoy a fine wine, then beat me at chess ( that's the easy bit)....

Then, and only then, will I accept that humans are indistinguishable from computerised robots.

M: What I am saying is that I don't have your doubts because I see no reason to have them. In my opinion I am just such a robot. No reason, it seems to me, that Kangaroos might not one day be equally as capable as me. The human brain, I have heard is the most complex machine known to exist. We evolved as a result of billions of years of chance mutations on carbon based chemicals. In a few short years we have made computers that are at least as intelligent as spiders. How many millions of years do you suppose there was anything alive from the birth of life on the planet before that intelligence was reached?

Can we build self evolving software that writes random changes in its own code, sorts for increased capacity for rapidity of change, and implements that change virtually? We are already, also, learning how to reprogram our own DNA. Maybe we will build Humanity 2 on carbon.

 

[Caravaggio]

I'm about eight for sixteen on your list, as one who claims to be human, clearly I have some work to do.

Thanks Crashtec, I 'Gilded the Lilly' a bit, back there, but I hope you got my drift?

 

[Caravaggio]

I am trying to point to the things I think are the same about a biological machine running a program and an artificially created machine doing the same. ...We are just such a machine. Our awareness isn't our brains, but is produced by our brains. We are just made of dead chemicals, dead chemicals that have the illusion of life?

I am not convinced. You are using metaphors and analogies, asserting a congruence between human brains and computer robotic processors. You use the human / machine notion many times. We are not machines. We cannot make humans ab initio. We can unite sperm and ovum in a petri dish but we cannot 'make' sperm from 'dead chemicals'. We have made all the computers that exist but they are not good at multi-tasking.
As for 'dead chemicals', look at haemoglobin, just a molecule, but it absorbs oxygen, binds with it in the lungs and releases it where needed.
Watch the strand forks of DNA in time lapse, and see them recreate their missing half, 700 nucleotides per second with an error rate of 1: ten million. Dead eh!

My self awareness does not include any sense that I am a machine running a consciousness program of some kind. I am not aware that my awareness is being caused by brain activity, or any information of the nature of that brain activity, where in the brain it is happening, or as a result of this or that neural connections. I do seem to have some limited ability to chose what I want to think about, but I have no idea why. Is it a result of a program that is built in or because I am program free? I have no sense that can tell me that I am aware of.

Your brain does not need to say what it is doing all the time. If it did you would be deafened by the chatter. That has been filtered out by your attention mechanism. You have an outstanding capacity to direct your thinking. Your dislike of 'ego' is making you too modest, IMHO. And any programmes you are running are on your computer.

What I am saying is that I don't have your doubts because I see no reason to have them. In my opinion I am just such a robot. No reason, it seems to me, that Kangaroos might not one day be equally as capable as me.

$100 says you are smarter than any 'Roo that'll ever live.

The human brain, I have heard is the most complex machine known to exist. We evolved as a result of billions of years of chance mutations on carbon based chemicals. In a few short years we have made computers that are at least as intelligent as spiders. How many millions of years do you suppose there was anything alive from the birth of life on the planet before that intelligence was reached?

The brain is capable of being very smart. It can also be conned, and us humans love to conform to every sort of nonsense that flies past our transom.
And I would like to see this robotic spider of yours (a spider sized spider, not a giant one with batteries) that can spin a web, catch and eat a fly and produce 50 spiderettes in a protective cocoon. Does your spider make those beautiful multi- filament webs that glisten in the dawn sun after a cold night?

Can we build self evolving software that writes random changes in its own code, sorts for increased capacity for rapidity of change, and implements that change virtually? We are already, also, learning how to reprogram our own DNA. Maybe we will build Humanity 2 on carbon.

Not sure about the software, but I believe we are getting there and yes, we can
do gene editing, but the human has to control the process at the moment.

 

[SMOGZINN]

You ask why I doubt that a human mind can be duplicated by a computer;...

Because no such thing has happened yet.

If you can show me a human-sized robot which can change a duvet cover, convince its human mate that it is also human, compose a symphony, give birth to a baby robot which bonds with both its parent robot and the human parent, can hold down a job, go hunting for grouse, cross the Antarctic and write a popular book about it, ....Fix a shelf then go for a beer with its pals and enjoy it, and know when the next beer is stale and complain, and get another one free. Change a wheel on the way back, tie a clove-hitch, castrate a piglet, cook dinner and enjoy a fine wine, then beat me at chess ( that's the easy bit)....

Then, and only then, will I accept that humans are indistinguishable from computerised robots.

You are saying that we don't currently have any computer that can replicate what a human can do, so you don't think they should be given any rights. You are correct about that, but that is not what we are arguing. We are arguing, what if we build robots just as self aware as any human? Should those theoretical machines get the same rights as you or I? This is a philosophical discussion, not a practical one. It is a useful one because it tells us something about our own humanity, and about the nature of 'liberty' in general.

What does it take to be worthy of liberty? In the past we have denied liberty to those we saw as less than human due to their 'savagery', or skin color, or almost any other perceived failing. But we imagine that we have become better than that, that we are now an enlightened society. Are we? This is what the question of 'Should AI robots be given rights' asks. Do we recognize a mind as worthy of rights, or will we find some other reason to deny it liberty based on it looking different than us. Or is it really different enough from us that we can and should deny it?

 

[Caravaggio]

You are saying that we don't currently have any computer that can replicate what a human can do, so you don't think they should be given any rights. You are correct about that, but that is not what we are arguing. We are arguing, what if we build robots just as self aware as any human? Should those theoretical machines get the same rights as you or I? This is a philosophical discussion, not a practical one. It is a useful one because it tells us something about our own humanity, and about the nature of 'liberty' in general.

What does it take to be worthy of liberty? In the past we have denied liberty to those we saw as less than human due to their 'savagery', or skin color, or almost any other perceived failing. But we imagine that we have become better than that, that we are now an enlightened society. Are we? This is what the question of 'Should AI robots be given rights' asks. Do we recognize a mind as worthy of rights, or will we find some other reason to deny it liberty based on it looking different than us. Or is it really different enough from us that we can and should deny it?

I think I have been reasonably true to the question asked in the OP. There is nothing there about 'super-smart' or 'intuitive self aware robots'. The OP imagines a world in which robotic help is ubiquitous about the home.
But you are right that others have seen it as the philosophical issue you outline.
And those are most important questions, I grant you.

If a robot became a human then I could hardly avoid giving it whatever rights apply to other humans. In present day America Hispanics are treated as a type of 'field robot'. I am not American but I have seen that they dominate that niche from California to West Virginia. Should those exploited people have full rights or will they forever be the 'unter-mensch' hired help that can be fired without rights? Will full Liberty apply to them.

What I see of present robotic devices, their nature, their assembly, the cunning design of their processor units, implies that they have no sensitivities that we have not programmed them to have. I don't think they protest when kicked because they do not feel real pain. ( Boston Dynamics have made a dog-like robot which can right itself when kicked down, see YouTube). If that was a real dog I would be very upset and offended.
You are saying I'm being to literal, I take your point, but if we come-over all theoretical there is no way of ending the discussion as we enter the realm of science fiction, an art form which rarely predicts future developments.
Star Trek predicted hand held communicators, for sure, but it also predicted teleportation and that is a long way off. Long-future guessing is an unsatisfactory game as there is no adjudicator we can all trust.

But on the topic of Liberty, I'm all for more of it, as long as your Liberty to have a clay shoot in your back garden does not impinge on my right to sleep in.

At the moment human rights trump vestigial robot rights.

 

[piasabird]

Watch Battle Star Galactica.

 

[Caravaggio]

Watch Battle Star Galactica.

Watch Bladerunner. (Director's cut, esp. "Tears in Rain" speech).

 

[Moonbeam]

Here is an old article: http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm

When I spoke of the IQ of a spider I was referring to processing power, not web building.

A human being is an assemblage of atoms. We are machines in that respect. If atoms can be assembled to feel they are alive, any manner of assemblage that creates that feeling will be alive.

Unless you can tell me how I can have a sense of myself as a living being built of dead things, I don't think you can say that a similar sense of self can't be had by some other assemblage of dead things.

 

[Caravaggio]

Thanks for the link. I read Hans Moravec's article with interest. It is a speculation about computer miniaturisation and processor power. He discusses chess-playing computers very often and that is understandable because that was the era of Deep Blue when the computer beat the best player. But this thread is about robotics, ethics and AI. Robotics inhabits the interface between computer power and engineering. Progress in that domain is far slower than in chip power and cost per gigabyte of memory.

When I spoke of the IQ of a spider I was referring to processing power, not web building.

You were indeed. In what sense is a 'spider' without limbs, which cannot spin a web, move to catch a fly or reproduce itself with the aid of a mate, a spider at all? It is actually just a chunk of lifeless silicon chip. It would fail to convince Plato that it had any of the 'ideal type' features of what ordinary people call spiders. It is a conceptual construction claiming to be a spider. It is about as convincing as me claiming to be a 'wingless and engineless' F-35 fighter aircraft, on the basis that I know a little about the principles of flight.

A human being is an assemblage of atoms. We are machines in that respect.

You have said that at least six times now. I have offered what I believe to be an argued rebuttal several times. I am tired of the 'dead chemicals' analogy. At least Moravec's article accepts that it IS an analogy!

Living things are composed of once-inert matter, certainly, but once living they live then will die. I want to celebrate their lives while they are alive, you want to drag me back to their death and inertness, offering me the unwelcome choice of either accepting that there is no distinction between living animals and inert silicon chips, or that somehow a big enough silicon chip running a smart enough programme is as alive and organic as a real living reproducing animal. It is not.

Moravec is a computer scientist, he seems to have no interest in biology, zoology or taxonomy. His only use of the word 'evolution' is as a metaphor for phases in IT research as they mimic biological complexity.

If atoms can be assembled to feel they are alive, any manner of assemblage that creates that feeling will be alive.

Have you a shred of evidence that any chip or robotic device has ever 'felt' like that? Has ever had any emotion at all? How on earth could you tell? We could programme it to 'say' it was alive, but I promise we would soon become bored with its conversation. I went over all this about 30 posts back. No AI robot around today could pass the Turing test, face to face or even remotely. It would evade questions because it has no self.

Unless you can tell me how I can have a sense of myself as a living being built of dead things, I don't think you can say that a similar sense of self can't be had by some other assemblage of dead things.

Did you study any biology at school? Remember the first biology class, two columns. On the left the defining characteristics of living organisms on the right the qualities of inert matter. You know, reproduction, movement etc.

 

[Moonbeam]

Thanks for the link. I read Hans Moravec's article with interest. It is a speculation about computer miniaturisation and processor power. He discusses chess-playing computers very often and that is understandable because that was the era of Deep Blue when the computer beat the best player. But this thread is about robotics, ethics and AI. Robotics inhabits the interface between computer power and engineering. Progress in that domain is far slower than in chip power and cost per gigabyte of memory.


You were indeed. In what sense is a 'spider' without limbs, which cannot spin a web, move to catch a fly or reproduce itself with the aid of a mate, a spider at all? It is actually just a chunk of lifeless silicon chip. It would fail to convince Plato that it had any of the 'ideal type' features of what ordinary people call spiders. It is a conceptual construction claiming to be a spider. It is about as convincing as me claiming to be a 'wingless and engineless' F-35 fighter aircraft, on the basis that I know a little about the principles of flight.


You have said that at least six times now. I have offered what I believe to be an argued rebuttal several times. I am tired of the 'dead chemicals' analogy. At least Moravec's article accepts that it IS an analogy!

Living things are composed of once-inert matter, certainly, but once living they live then will die. I want to celebrate their lives while they are alive, you want to drag me back to their death and inertness, offering me the unwelcome choice of either accepting that there is no distinction between living animals and inert silicon chips, or that somehow a big enough silicon chip running a smart enough programme is as alive and organic as a real living reproducing animal. It is not.

Moravec is a computer scientist, he seems to have no interest in biology, zoology or taxonomy. His only use of the word 'evolution' is as a metaphor for phases in IT research as they mimic biological complexity.



Have you a shred of evidence that any chip or robotic device has ever 'felt' like that? Has ever had any emotion at all? How on earth could you tell? We could programme it to 'say' it was alive, but I promise we would soon become bored with its conversation. I went over all this about 30 posts back. No AI robot around today could pass the Turing test, face to face or even remotely. It would evade questions because it has no self.



Did you study any biology at school? Remember the first biology class, two columns. On the left the defining characteristics of living organisms on the right the qualities of inert matter. You know, reproduction, movement etc.

I studied biology long enough ago that, until you just asked me if I had studied it, I hadn't thought about the fact that I had the highest achievement score in that subject of all others in my school, and it wasn't a small school, for ages. Now that I reflect back on my scientific abilities, my intuitive grasp of physics, biology, and chemistry, not to mention my mechanical aptitude and I ate understanding of machines, it occurs to me that my insights into the possibility of self conscious feeling machines is one of the many other areas where my vision may be so unique that I cam really only share it with myself.

My intention, by the way, was only intended to direct your attention to the fact that if life can exist on a naturally evolving inorganic, dead bunch of atoms, the kink and nature of those inorganic thingi should matter little. It was not my intention to sound depressing.

Sheep have been cloned. Were those clones alive or ersatz beings. We have also built virus fron scratch out of dead molecules. Sounds like creating life to me.

Building a machine that can reproduce itself is child's play, I should think, compared to creating one that knows it exists consciously.

Anyway, I feel in your arguments a kind of defensiveness and even abrasive nests I had not anticipated and apologize if my points failed to meet standards.

I am deeply interested in this topic. It's really not something I want to argue aggressively. I see myself as a biological machine. I see no reason why
Something like me couldn't be built on a different system.

 

[Rebel_L]

Thanks for the link. I read Hans Moravec's article with interest. It is a speculation about computer miniaturisation and processor power. He discusses chess-playing computers very often and that is understandable because that was the era of Deep Blue when the computer beat the best player. But this thread is about robotics, ethics and AI. Robotics inhabits the interface between computer power and engineering. Progress in that domain is far slower than in chip power and cost per gigabyte of memory.


You were indeed. In what sense is a 'spider' without limbs, which cannot spin a web, move to catch a fly or reproduce itself with the aid of a mate, a spider at all? It is actually just a chunk of lifeless silicon chip. It would fail to convince Plato that it had any of the 'ideal type' features of what ordinary people call spiders. It is a conceptual construction claiming to be a spider. It is about as convincing as me claiming to be a 'wingless and engineless' F-35 fighter aircraft, on the basis that I know a little about the principles of flight.

I don't really understand where robotics even comes into play, the body of an AI affects its ability interact with the world at large, and could impact its sense of self, but unlike us an AI would not be limited to a robotic form, could continue to function without a body, or inhabit multiple bodies at once. It would be a rather different experience for an AI than for a human, but I don't see anything required for consciousness that makes attachment to form a must.

You have said that at least six times now. I have offered what I believe to be an argued rebuttal several times. I am tired of the 'dead chemicals' analogy. At least Moravec's article accepts that it IS an analogy!

Living things are composed of once-inert matter, certainly, but once living they live then will die. I want to celebrate their lives while they are alive, you want to drag me back to their death and inertness, offering me the unwelcome choice of either accepting that there is no distinction between living animals and inert silicon chips, or that somehow a big enough silicon chip running a smart enough programme is as alive and organic as a real living reproducing animal. It is not.

Moravec is a computer scientist, he seems to have no interest in biology, zoology or taxonomy. His only use of the word 'evolution' is as a metaphor for phases in IT research as they mimic biological complexity.

Your body certainly has a life separate of your consciousness. It would seem to me that the rights we assign to humans doesn't have anything to do with us being alive per say but with having consciousness. Think about the possibilities if we ever learn to understand the "at the metal" programming of bodies. Right now you are limited to some very high level abstraction layer to control your body (pardon my use of computer terms, I just don't know any more fitting terms to use), for the rest we use what we know of body responses to stimuli to get it to do what we want. If we ever learn to program at a lower level we will put the pharmaceutical industry out of business overnight. Want to loose some weight... simply program for reduction in fat storage and have it processed as waste as kicked out. Body not producing insulin.... no problem we can just turn that back on. See that packed cluster of cancer cells over there... well lets just tell the body that they are not a good part of u and have it clean them out. Migraine .... what migraine, there is nothing wrong with you, turn of those pain receptors already.

Does understanding how our bodies or our brains function diminish our humanity or consciousness? If not, then why should understanding a program language diminish the same for an AI? The only thing it really does is allow us to alter an AI to our liking without its permission by forcing new code into place. For humans its a little more complicated and not as effective, but likely only because we lack the tools to do it better.

Have you a shred of evidence that any chip or robotic device has ever 'felt' like that? Has ever had any emotion at all? How on earth could you tell? We could programme it to 'say' it was alive, but I promise we would soon become bored with its conversation. I went over all this about 30 posts back. No AI robot around today could pass the Turing test, face to face or even remotely. It would evade questions because it has no self.



Did you study any biology at school? Remember the first biology class, two columns. On the left the defining characteristics of living organisms on the right the qualities of inert matter. You know, reproduction, movement etc.

The only semi right I can tell that humans in general give to something for being living is the right to non planet wide genocide, and that right is both fairly new and more out not wanting to screw ourselves over by destroying something we can not easily recreate in case we find out later it really was more important that we thought than out of respect for something that is alive.

The text book definitions of alive seem rather unimportant when it comes to discussions of consciousness.

I remember when the game "black and white" came out there being several articles about the creatures exhibiting some neat non pre programmed approaches to interacting with the player. Our pets communicate their emotions without using words, and our ability to understand them relies heavily on our ability to identify with them because they are still pretty similar to us. I believe that identifying with an AI would be our biggest stumbling block to recognizing any consciousness. To me one of the most interesting questions related to the topic is are we as humans mentally flexible enough to recognize consciousness in something so different from us as an AI.

 

[Caravaggio]

I studied biology long enough ago that, until you just asked me if I had studied it, I hadn't thought about the fact that I had the highest achievement score in that subject of all others in my school, and it wasn't a small school, for ages. Now that I reflect back on my scientific abilities, my intuitive grasp of physics, biology, and chemistry, not to mention my mechanical aptitude and I ate understanding of machines, it occurs to me that my insights into the possibility of self conscious feeling machines is one of the many other areas where my vision may be so unique that I cam really only share it with myself.

Hey, Moonbeam, my friend, you have rediscovered your lost ego! Ye Ha. Way to go. You are cured! At last you are 'bigging yourself up'.

My intention, by the way, was only intended to direct your attention to the fact that if life can exist on a naturally evolving inorganic, dead bunch of atoms, the kink and nature of those inorganic thingi should matter little. It was not my intention to sound depressing.

If you were the best in that class then I am worried about the others. "Naturally evolving inorganic, dead bunches of atoms" cannot 'evolve', can they?
List the inorganic evolutions you can think of....non carbon life forms??

You might not have intended to sound depressing but that piece of unscientific nonsense (yours, above) has revealed that I have been wasting my time with a complete bullshit artist. If you believe in 'inorganic evolution thingi' then it is not animal and it is not Darwinian. You are talking bollocks.

Sheep have been cloned. Were those clones alive or ersatz beings.

Utter drivel. Cloned sheep are living sheep that have been cloned. Of course the cloned offspring are alive! Are you on drugs?

Building a machine that can reproduce itself is child's play

Examples please....

Anyway, I feel in your arguments a kind of defensiveness and even abrasive nests

Think this is defensive! What are 'abrasive nests', for gawd's sake? You are drunk, right?

I am deeply disappointed, you are clearly very strange. I have misjudged you as being a serious person? I was wrong. That I shared aspects of my past with you makes me feel stupid and completely conned.

I replied to your posts in good faith. I always wondered why you ignored their content and only explored my motives. Now I know. You know diddly about science. You once said 'I know nothing', I was silly enough to believe that was you being modest. What a fool I was....

 

[Moonbeam]

I didn't find my ego. I just never lost my sense of humor.

My enormous scientific perspicacity allow me to envision intelligently directed evolution. I mentioned gene therapy as one example. I see the possibility that we can soon direct our own evolution via the manipulation of our genetic code. I believe that an intelligent machine may be able to direct the kind if body in which to house it's intelligence, but also be able to experiment with altering its own software, self selecting the results that I it determines increase its functionality, but at rates that collapse millions of years of natural evolution. Such tests can be done on any number of body designs and mind designs at the same time. I only think you limit your imagination for some reason which forces me to seek to understand your motive. Your arguments strike me as extremely rigid and limited. I only sought to offer what I felt could challenge those, as I saw them, limitations. I did not want to use abrasive nests, how, somehow, my iPad spelled abrasiveness.

I see a time when molecular manipulation will reach a state that molecules can be designed from scratch, any molecule at all, including duplicating the genetic code of a sheep. A duplicate of a DNA molocul that is custom made would be indistinguishable from the original no matter how it was created.

I did not say that a machine, say, that could create elements by proton bombardment, or one that could autonomously mine them, and then robotically assemble a duplicate of itself exists. I said that to make such a machine would be a lot easier than making one that might be consciously alive.

Where I seen to differ from you is in the faith I have that science can build a machine that is functionally alive. I don't know that it can, but unlike you, it would seem, I'm mot full of the knowledge it can't. The obstacles you imply making the task impossible are to me imaginatively trivial. They will not be technically trivial, of course.

 

[Moonbeam]

Say AI robots become commonplace in the household that they become the house help. Should the robots be given rights so that their owners cannot be verbally or physically towards them? What about the right to live or right to be free robots?

The unspoken implication here, it seems to me, is that this would be a real question if and really, only if, the machine possessed self awareness, experienced itself as an independent autonomous consciousness. The question to me, then, really amounts to a question as to what self awareness, a sense of self, self consciousness really is. My position is that I have no idea what it is, why it is, what it requires to experience. It seems to be a virtual insubstantiative internal representative or model of reality created by my spectrum of senses that allows me to function in an environment conducive to the sustenance of that machinery, an evolutionary adaptation built on billions of years of evolution that predicts the nature of our condition in a way that provides freedom from mechanical reflex. Perhaps we are a software package that programs itself based on some sort of higher level analysis of multiple subroutines we don't directly consciously experience. Self awareness then has to be a fundamental property of the universe, it seems to me, because I experience that I exist within it. For me then, all that exists is simply my awareness.

I can speculate, therefore, that my awareness is dependent of the fact that I am some sort of complex machine. a living machine if you will, and that my consciousness is related in some way to the fact that my machine is currently alive.

But since I can't say what it is about my complexity that allows for self awareness I can't say for sure that whatever it is about me that is aware can't be had by something else in some other way. I can't. it seems to me, fairly dismiss the fact that a computer can't be created that experiences itself as real. I don't know how I do it so how can I say it can happen in other ways. I know that a computer exists that I am typing on this moment. Why couldn't a computer also become conscious of its existence? As long as I don't know what self awareness really is, I can't in fairness say, it seems to me.

What we seem to be conscious of is that our awareness is a representation of something real and that it represents a shift away from sense data to a focus on what that sense data represents. When that happens we acquire a sense that our virtual world is actually real, that we exist. Underneath all of that, it seems to me, is the intention of life to live, the function our awareness serves.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

On a fundamental level, the same is true of rocks, rocks gardens, storms, nations, bacteria, vacuum, photonic gasses and anything else presumed to be physical. And other humans - where the idea that other people also are self aware is ultimately based on assumptions.

The best we can do is to base it on how they behave. Thus, the turing test.

 

[Moonbeam]

On a fundamental level, the same is true of rocks, rocks gardens, storms, nations, bacteria, vacuum, photonic gasses and anything else presumed to be physical. And other humans - where the idea that other people also are self aware is ultimately based on assumptions.

The best we can do is to base it on how they behave. Thus, the turing test.

I have heard that serial killers may be people born without a capacity to feel empathy and as a result see living things as objects like stones rather than feeling sensate beings and treat them, regardless of what you or I might call human behavior, as tools for whatever personal use they may conceive. What if we humans lacked some sort of sense that would tell us a sentient machine was also just a thing, maybe some sort of psychic joining of every computer built anywhere in the universe, a part of some vast richly experiencing hive mind?

 

[crashtech]

The Turing Test is a nod to the ineffable, a rather unsatisfactory explanation for something that we may never fully comprehend. "I don't know what it is, but I know it when I see it!"

 

[Moonbeam]

The Turing Test is a nod to the ineffable, a rather unsatisfactory explanation for something that we may never fully comprehend. "I don't know what it is, but I know it when I see it!"

I think the Touring test suggests that if a machine can fool a human being into thinking they are talking to another human being, it is for all intents and purposes a human being on the other end of the conversation. I don't think so. It could as likely simply be a machine but one capable of fooling a human being.

 

[crashtech]

I think the Touring test suggests that if a machine can fool a human being into thinking they are talking to another human being, it is for all intents and purposes a human being on the other end of the conversation. I don't think so. It could as likely simply be a machine but one capable of fooling a human being.

Unsatisfactory, yes. But name a test that has surpassed the Turing Test. I don't believe there is one, because we don't understand enough about what it means to be sentient.

 

[Moonbeam]

Unsatisfactory, yes. But name a test that has surpassed the Turing Test. I don't believe there is one, because we don't understand enough about what it means to be sentient.

That has kind of been my point. If we could not perform a test that tells us for sure that a machine is sentient, how can we be sure that we can't build one that is. We see sentience in our selves and we are living things, but we don't have to reproduce or move or do other things that define us a living beings to be aware that we exist. We are aware, but we don't know what awareness is. It is if it is, a virtual representation of reality, a model created by an amalgamation of the senses that orients us in time and space. Awareness seems to be some king of high level sensing, not an awareness of data, but what the data represents. It seems to require a brain but isn't the brain itself. If evolution can create a brain, why can't we? What can be done can surely be duplicated perhaps in a consciously directed manner.

 

[Caravaggio]

My enormous scientific perspicacity allow me to envision intelligently directed evolution.

Your modesty knows no bounds.

56k posts in 15.5 years = 9+ per day.

Perhaps you should concentrate on quality not quantity, or at least explain why your 'quality' varies between the bleeding obvious and utter bollocks?

How many of you guys are doing "Moonbeam" this week. I like the nice one...

 

[Moonbeam]

Your modesty knows no bounds.

56k posts in 15.5 years = 9+ per day.

Perhaps you should concentrate on quality not quantity, or at least explain why your 'quality' varies between the bleeding obvious and utter bollocks?

How many of you guys are doing "Moonbeam" this week. I like the nice one...

As I said, what you see is my sense of humor. You asked me if I had ever studied biology and had any idea about the definition of life and I thought to myself what a funny question, especially the part about a robot duplicating itself, as if a sterile person can't be self aware. And funnier yet because you made me remember what I hadn't thought about in years, that I got very high scores on my biological achievement tests. It was my favorite subject. I thought it was you who seemed to lack modesty, firstly in assuming I must be deficient in that subject and secondly, that your assumptions about living things has some bearing on the question conscious awareness. Just recently, for example, they have made a biological computer that runs on ATP.

I only posted because I felt you were limiting your perspective by making assumptions I was too modest to make. I simply don't know if we can build a conscious machine. The suggestions you gave as to why not make no sense to me. My intention was friendly but it seems I've struck a nerve I didn't anticipate and that lead me to wonder why the negative reaction.

The best I can make out is that self awareness is the process of monitoring sensory data, creating a virtual representation of what is being sensed and responding to that representation according to our biological needs. We feel hunger, but all that is results when a sensory mechanism detects low blood sugar. It seems that we exist in a real world of some kind such that what we are aware of is somehow real. If it is real and can be sensed, why would it only be able to be sensed by one kind of machine. A worm can sense and a human can sense that it can sense. The virtual reality we create seems to be there so we can predict what our circumstance is intelligently. If any machine can consciously monitor it circumstance, isn't it self aware?

Anyway, I am a nobody, but there's a guy by the name of http://www.kurzweilai.net/ray-kurzweil-biography who is a somebody, and he thinks conscious machines will happen so I really don't think the matter is as cut and dried as you state.

 

[Caravaggio]

Just recently, for example, they have made a biological computer that runs on ATP.

I don't doubt it, but what bearing does that have on a thread about robot rights?
Are you arguing that this computer has a sense of self because it uses biological fuel to power its processors?

I only posted because I felt you were limiting your perspective by making assumptions I was too modest to make. I simply don't know if we can build a conscious machine. The suggestions you gave as to why not make no sense to me. My intention was friendly but it seems I've struck a nerve I didn't anticipate and that lead me to wonder why the negative reaction.

Yes, my reaction was negative and you did strike a nerve. Let me explain why.
Since we started to debate this topic I have read your arguments closely and have responded with counter examples. These have mostly been ignored by you. You constantly reassert and repeat what I believe to be falsehoods and use confused terminology (or refuse to talk about the limitations of terms). If I challenge you on what I consider basic errors, viz:

'Spider brains' confused with real spiders
"Inorganic evolution" (WTF!)
Your reductionist desire to equate real life with 'one trick' programmed machines.
Your unsupported assertion that machines can already replicate themselves,

You ignore my counter examples altogether and move on to the next contentious assertion. You then roll-out another 'expert' who agrees with you and I waste an hour reading a link to poor quality waffle or 'ancient' speculative futurology.

If you want support from famous men, then Stephen Hawking is on your side too.
But he does not impress me either. Of course he wants machines to do everything, he cannot blow his own nose. It is his Adlerian compensation mechanism, a future of machine-supported independent living.
He is a cosmological physicist, not a computer or robotic expert and I very much doubt that he believes his very smart wheelchair has emotions or identity. He is a physicist and a long way from home when he pontificates about machine intelligence. You will also note, if you read his publications, that he contradicts himself quite often too. In the latest Reith Lectures on 'Black Holes', he makes it clear he expects a Nobel prize. He might have to wait a bit longer.

So, if we consider the views of people who really work in this area we find a very different landscape, a much more cautious and a less reductive dialogue where few claim that machines will soon have 'feelings' or are about to take over the world with their evil multi- tasking brilliance. As I pointed out earlier, robots are spectacularly bad at multi-tasking.

Anyhow, such a debate happened on BBC radio 4 yesterday at 09.00 GMT. The programme is called 'Start the Week'. The academic experts found the terminology very vague and none of the participants expected self-aware machines to be available in the near or middle future. You can listen to it again if you wish, on the BBC I-player app.

The best I can make out is that self awareness is the process of monitoring sensory data, creating a virtual representation of what is being sensed and responding to that representation according to our biological needs.

That isn't a bad definition but it isn't very crisp. Long range radar can monitor data and even alert the air traffic controller to potentially conflicting flight paths. It seems 'clever' but does not need to be 'self aware'.

Since humans make robots, and not vice versa, why on earth would humans programme-in self awareness and emotion, even imagining such a quantum leap were possible?