Fearing AI: Possibility of Sentient Self-Autonomous Robots

[Astronuc]

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will make his public debut in Congress on Tuesday, testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee at a hearing on AI oversight.

The testimony comes as lawmakers seek to better understand the range of risks posed by generative AI and possible ways to mitigate them, as The Hill previously reported.

“AI is one of the most important issues of our times, with enormous potential both positive and negative, and it is crucial that we get it right,” Gary Marcus, professor emeritus at New York University, said in an email.

https://thehill.com/video/4006208-watch-live-openai-ceo-testifies-before-senate-panel/

Marcus said he will discuss the urgency of the situation and “the tremendous need for having independent scientists at the table” in order to “distinguish between hype and reality and to identify and mitigate a broad arrays of newly-developing risks.”

 

[jack action]

So a body that can feel, sense and explore provides a huge leap for the intellect in question as it allows it to acquire new complex information much faster and in many more ways than what a internet connection would ever allow to a AI box sitting in the basement somewhere.

That's what I said:

To make a choice, a physiological sensor must exist first. One that either hurts you or makes you feel good. This is the only way choices will be made.

And then, to be conscious, you must have the ability to adapt, to evolve, such that your choices evolve with your environment otherwise, you will surely die by making a fatal wrong decision one time or another. At this point what seem to be bad choices may be the right ones and vice-versa because everything around you is changing in an unpredictable way. And you spent the rest of your life always in doubt, which means "artificial" intelligence just became "old boring" intelligence as we already know it.

Bummer.

 

[artis]

That's what I said:

It seems I forgot your response from earlier. I would argue that physical reality is not an absolute must because in theory one can create a "person" in virtual reality where they can have a realistic experience if the VR is built as much as possible to mimic our physical world , in fact many games nowadays are done that way.

After all for a silicon based computer the pain is never "really real" like it is for us having biological bodies because that computer would only sense pain as some specific level/spectrum of input signal from say a piezo sensor that determines the shock etc , so for the computer brain this signal could come from a real sensor or it could come from a simulated one as it moves along it's assumed persona within a VR setting, I don't see the difference honestly.

After all reality for the brain is only as real as our senses can make it to be since the brain itself sits in a dark space and cannot directly interact with any outside force, except maybe some inertia and other forces that cause brain injuries etc but then again those are not the usual senses one feels as he goes by his day.

 

[PeterDonis]

for a silicon based computer the pain is never "really real" like it is for us having biological bodies because that computer would only sense pain as some specific level/spectrum of input signal from say a piezo sensor that determines the shock

Our biological bodies work the same way: your brain "senses pain" because of particular nerve impulses coming into it, but your brain has no way of knowing what originally produced those nerve impulses. That's why, for example, people can feel pain (and other sensations) from limbs that they no longer have (because they were amputated--look up "phantom limb"). So it is not correct to say that the pain is "never really real" for a silicon computer on these grounds, unless you are willing to say the same thing for us having biological bodies. But if any of our pains can be "really real", then so could pains felt by a silicon based computer.

 

[artis]

Our biological bodies work the same way: your brain "senses pain" because of particular nerve impulses coming into it, but your brain has no way of knowing what originally produced those nerve impulses. That's why, for example, people can feel pain (and other sensations) from limbs that they no longer have (because they were amputated--look up "phantom limb"). So it is not correct to say that the pain is "never really real" for a silicon computer on these grounds, unless you are willing to say the same thing for us having biological bodies. But if any of our pains can be "really real", then so could pains felt by a silicon based computer.

Your objection is correct, I should have been clearer , what I meant is that due to the difference in information processing architecture and difference in the "resolution" and number of sensors between the human body and our current robots, it is that the robots have a very very limited and crude level of sensory input as compared to a human body which , for example, has about 1000 nerve endings per square inch of skin surface area, that's just the skin , how many more internally etc.
And the human brain which manages to process all that input on a continual basis with roughly the 20 watts equivalent of power usage.

The similarity is there of course that both a silicon computer as well as our brain itself doesn't feel anything apart from the input it receives so "reality" is also a construct made by us in our heads although it never is really within our heads so to speak, but still due to the vast difference between complexity and architecture I'd say for us the pain is "more real" than for our current robots.

It's like comparing a true analog complex waveform with a low resolution digital copy of it , if the resolution is low enough, at some point you lose almost any similarity between them and the waveform isn't a copy anymore.
But I get your point , yes it is true, pain as such is still just a type of sense given to the brain by nerves.
All I wanted to say is that with very few sensors and crude input processing you only really have low resolution and therefore you either have something that would be the equivalent of awful pain or medium or light VS for us it can be a million different "pains" from barely noticeable to excruciating to everything in between.

 

[gleem]

It was a matter of time before some mischief occurred. Yesterday at about 10:09 AM the S/P dropped 10 pts quickly and just as quickly recovered. An image was posted on Facebook of an explosion that was to have occurred at the Pentagon. A few minutes later the image was repudiated on Twitter and the market recovered. Also several days ago 30 Tons of ammonium nitrate went "missing" from a railroad shipment. Was this a test? Fun and games ahead.

 

[256bits]

Interesting how quickly 'people' who are stock managers can react to (mis)information. and then to the verification ( of nefarious game playing by someone).
7 minutes for the Dow to drop and recover.
5 minutes for the S&P

So what isn't being said here?

From Cnn
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/22/tech/twitter-fake-image-pentagon-explosion/index.html
In the moments after the image began circulating on Twitter, the US stock market took a noticeable dip. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell about 80 points between 10:06 a.m. and 10:10 a.m., fully recovering by 10:13 a.m. Similarly, the broader S&P 500 went from up 0.02% at 10:06 a.m. to down 0.15% at 10:09 a.m.. By 10:11 a.m., the index was positive again.

 

[gleem]

Interesting how quickly 'people' who are stock managers can react to (mis)information. and then to the verification ( of nefarious game playing by someone).
7 minutes for the Dow to drop and recover.
5 minutes for the S&P

I am sure there are plans if not already instituted to use AI to monitor the market and news/internet second by second to keep some investors ahead of the herd. So we might expect even greater volatility.

 

[Astronuc]

ChatGPT is making people more money and better at their jobs. 4 of them break down how.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/chatgpt-making-people-more-money-114549005.html

AI is simply a tool, which can be used properly/productively or misused destructively.https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/chatgpt-generative-ai-around-world-160000766.html

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Just got access to Googles new search AI SGE. It’s a nice search experience.

 

[russ_watters]

ChatGPT is making people more money and better at their jobs. 4 of them break down how.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/chatgpt-making-people-more-money-114549005.html

AI is simply a tool, which can be used properly/productively or misused destructively.

I'm having trouble finding a kind way to critique 3 of those jobs, but 1 out of 4 isn't too bad if you're a baseball player. The others, yup, that's how they'll be replaced and it's a little surprising to me that the internet didn't replace them already.

 

[256bits]

If with all the hype about ChatGpt, and the bandwagon forming around it.
It is as if everyone is being sucked in, under the false belief that ChatGPT is infallible ( as well as other AI's out there present and future ).
That is the AI problem that will 'kiill' humanity IMO - Not an AI of superintelligence that will try to protect us from ourselves.
If we can't know what information is correct, as humans we will take the easy way out by just assuming that ChatGPT says, so so it must be true.

Sorry to pick on ChatGPT, but it is giving the true nature of what the AI modelling has unleashed upon the world.

The thing make stuff up, but appears to present the information as if an expert.
A typical mis-information route from ChatGPT.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/new...1&cvid=e967eb65af174e2ebd8b2d04a08b8db8&ei=12
A quote from the article of typical things that ChatGPT does,
The Research On ChatGPT Inaccuracies: This growing concern was brought into sharp focus by the study "High Rates of Fabricated and Inaccurate References in ChatGPT-Generated Medical Content," conducted by Mehul Bhattacharyya, Valerie M. Miller, Debjani Bhattacharyya and Larry E. Miller.

Through an analysis of 30 medical papers generated by ChatGPT-3.5, each containing at least three references, the researchers uncovered startling results: of the 115 references generated by the AI, 47% were completely fabricated, 46% were authentic but used inaccurately and only 7% were authentic and accurate.

Their findings reflect the larger concern that ChatGPT is capable of not only creating fabricated citations, but whole articles and bylines that never existed. This propensity, known as “hallucination,” is now seen as a significant threat to the integrity of information across many fields.

 

[gleem]

The defense in a recent case in federal court use ChatGPT for its research. The cited cases the defense used were dramatic in their impact. So much so that the judge suspected a problem, bogus citations. The defense said that they asked ChatGPT if the cases cited were real and it admitted one was not even though all the others were made up.

There are other legal AI products i.e. those from Ironclad that are designed for legal research. A principal at Ironclad was referenced. (My emphasis.)

Alex Su, the head of community development at Ironclad, wrote on Substack that he feared the biggest takeaway most lawyers would have from Schwartz’s mistakes is “that they should never trust AI.”

He said this mindset would be a mistake for several reasons, including that ChatGPT is not synonymous with AI nor is it the same as all legal tools powered by artificial intelligence.

Su highlighted that there are companies with a history of making legal customers successful who offer AI-powered legal tech tools.

“Now that doesn’t mean that their generative AI products will be 100% reliable, of course,” Su wrote. “But vendors will be incentivized to warn users and speak candidly about their accuracy rates, which should far exceed ChatGPT’s—at least for law related use cases.”

It is striking that lawyers who most likely have "Due Diligence" tattooed somewhere on their bodies failed to
exercise it.

 

[jack action]

ChatGPT is capable of not only creating fabricated citations, but whole articles and bylines that never existed.

That is exactly what ChatGPT is programmed to do. It should be considered a "happy anomaly" when the information is true.

When people will realize this, they will understand that there is not much "I" in "AI".

 

[Rive]

That is exactly what ChatGPT is programmed to do.

Yep. It'll tinker together whatever words supposed to be satisfying.
ChatGPT is the AI of con artistry, not anything else.

 

[Astronuc]

Artificial Intelligence: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)​

 

[gleem]

Elon Musk just announced the formation of a new AI company called xAI.The company,
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/tech/elon-musk-ai-company/index.html

"The company, called xAI, unveiled a website and a team of a dozen staffers. The new company will be led by Musk, according to the website, and “will work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to make progress towards our mission.”

“The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe,” the website states, echoing language Musk has used before to describe his AI ambitions.

 

[.Scott]

After all for a silicon based computer the pain is never "really real" like it is for us having biological bodies because that computer would only sense pain as some specific level/spectrum of input signal from say a piezo sensor that determines the shock etc., so for the computer brain this signal could come from a real sensor or it could come from a simulated one as it moves along it's assumed persona within a VR setting, I don't see the difference honestly.

By "biological bodies", I believe you mean "biological brains". But I would go even further than that. It requires a biological brain with certain features shared by social mammals.

Just to dispose of that "bodies" part, an appropriate interface can be provided for a piezo sensor to allow it to generate brain-compatible signals. And the result would be "really real" pain. Similarly, the signals from human pain sensors can be directed to a silicon device and the result is not "really real".

If you want a computer to produce "really real" pain, I believe you need these features:
1) It needs the basic qualia. Moving bits around in Boolean gates doesn't do this. It is a basic technology problem. From my point of view, it is a variation of Grover's Algorithm.
2) As with humans, it needs a 1st-person model that includes "self-awareness" and an assessment of "well-being" and "control". But this is just a data problem.
3) As with humans, it needs to have a 2nd and 3rd person model - at least a minimum set of built-in social skills.
4) It needs to treat a pain signal as distracting and alarming - with the potential of "taking control" - and thus subverting all other "well-being" objectives.
5) Then it needs to support the escalating pain response: ignore it, seek a remedy, grimace/cry, explicitly request help.
6) For completeness, it would be nice for it to recognize the grimace and calls for help from others.

Part of the pain response comes from the 2nd or 3rd party human observer. Most of us can look at someone in a bad situation and in obvious need of help then respond with the grimace and other pain responses ourselves.

So, from a systems point of view, that is what pain is. Except for the "qualia" part, it is all software and peripheral mechanics.
Without the qualia, is isn't "really real", but it can look very good. After all, pain is very social and if the AI looks like it has reason to be in pain and grimaces and asks you for help, you will "really real" feel its pain.

Also without the qualia, it is worth considering that Darwinian influences selected a particular way for humans to address the survival issue in our "brainy" way. Since it happened upon (and employed) something involving qualia, we can strongly suspect that this "qualia" device provides certain information services more economically than Boolean logic. So, in emulating Human behavior, silicon devices might have to use their computational speed to offset this functional "qualia" handicap.

 

[PeterDonis]

It needs the basic qualia.

This depends on what position you take in the long-running philosophical controversy about qualia. Not everyone agrees that qualia are something extra that you have to add to the functional requirements you list.

 

[PeterDonis]

From my point of view, it is a variation of Grover's Algorithm.

What does Grover's Algorithm have to do with qualia?

 

[.Scott]

What does Grover's Algorithm have to do with qualia?

A quantum circuit that creates a superposition of the scores of many generated candidate intentions could then use the Grover Algorithm to find the best of those scores - or less precise, one of the best scores. By using the Grover Algorithm that way, you have taken advantage of QM data processing, involved the kind of information people are conscious of into a single QM state, and when on occasion the final output is actually implemented, it provides a connection between consciousness and our actions. If consciousness could not affect our actions, we could never truthfully report it.
Basically, I follow all of the arguments followed in Integrated Information Theory up to the point where they start suggesting that all you need to do is involve a certain amount of information in the data processing in some particular way. At that point I say, yes - and the way is to put in all into a single state - and there's only one way to do that in Physics.

The reason that all the data involved in a moments conscious thought has to be in a single state is hard for me to explain because I see it as so obvious. How else would you associate the right collection of "bits"? It's like trying to argue against magic.

So what Grover's algorithm has to do with qualia is that it checks off all the boxes that are necessary for qualia as experienced and reported by humans.

 

[.Scott]

This depends on what position you take in the long-running philosophical controversy about qualia. Not everyone agrees that qualia are something extra that you have to add to the functional requirements you list.

Here's the line of reasoning:
1) You ask yourself or anyone "when you are conscious are you always conscious of something - a memory, a dream, a sight, a tree, someone speaking, thoughts, etc.". Most people agree that its hard to be conscious when there is nothing to be conscious of - even if its only darkness or their own thoughts. So at this point I'm following the kind of analysis you find with IIT.
2) How many bits of information would it take to encode a minimum consciousness subject? The IIT argument builds this up better than me. They actually try to count up possible bits. But the point is that it many bits. Any more than 3 or 4 makes the point.
3) At this point, IIT simply say that the level of consciousness is related to the "integration" of those bits. My point is very simple, if they are not in a single state (ie, entangled), it doesn't matter what their history is. If they are not in a single state, each bit is a separate piece of information and their shared proximity or history does not change that. So there would be nothing to be "conscious of".

Let me put it another way. If any of my software suddenly started acting in any way other than how the Boolean arithmetic predicted, I would fix it. Even if it had a consciousness, it would have no way of telling anyone so - since its output would always be limited to what the logic dictated.

And if I included a stochastic element, now it's output could be unpredictable - controlled by that stochastic element. So what would that element be conscious of? Only what information it had.

Do you see the problem?

 

[PeterDonis]

Basically, I follow all of the arguments followed in Integrated Information Theory up to the point where they start suggesting that all you need to do is involve a certain amount of information in the data processing in some particular way. At that point I say, yes - and the way is to put in all into a single state - and there's only one way to do that in Physics.

This is personal speculation and is off limits here.

 

[.Scott]

This is personal speculation and is off limits here.

Okay, but I think I am allowed to critique published work - especially when it calls attention to one of the prerequisites of any workable consciousness theory.

So, this is what IIT says about the logic structure for the "integration" process required for consciousness (from the Wiki article):

• Integration: The cause-effect structure specified by the system must be unified: it must be intrinsically irreducible to that specified by non-interdependent sub-systems obtained by unidirectional partitions. Partitions are taken unidirectionally to ensure that cause-effect power is intrinsically irreducible—from the system's intrinsic perspective—which implies that every part of the system must be able to both affect and be affected by the rest of the system. Intrinsic irreducibility can be measured as integrated information ("big phi" or
  
  , a non-negative number), which quantifies to what extent the cause-effect structure specified by a system's elements changes if the system is partitioned (cut or reduced) along its minimum partition (the one that makes the least difference). By contrast, if a partition of the system makes no difference to its cause-effect structure, then the whole is reducible to those parts. If a whole has no cause-effect power above and beyond its parts, then there is no point in assuming that the whole exists in and of itself: thus, having irreducible cause-effect power is a further prerequisite for existence. This postulate also applies to individual mechanisms: a subset of elements can contribute a specific aspect of experience only if their combined cause-effect repertoire is irreducible by a minimum partition of the mechanism ("small phi" or
  
  ).

That "unidirectional partition" has a rather surprising definition:

A unidirectional partition

is a grouping of system elements where the connections from the set of elements

to

are injected with independent noise.

That paragraph is describing the characteristics of the data processing required for a system to qualify as information integration and therefore (per their claim) elicit qualia or consciousness. If it seems hard to follow, bear in mind that it is trying to address whether the system could be conscious of its input and to further isolate what type of data processing elements within that system could and could not participate in this consciousness.

Note that the devices they are describing could be implemented in either software or hardware - so it should be clear from my earlier posts that even if some sort of consciousness was elicited, it would have no means of affecting the Physical world. The supposed consciousness elicited by this process is a purely passive effect - and even if it had an influence on the circuits output, it would just be a bug. It is lacking any means to truthfully say that it is conscious or to described its appreciation for the red in a sunset.

 

[PeterDonis]

I think I am allowed to critique published work

To a point, perhaps, but the best way to do it is to reference another published work that contains the critique, not to roll your own.

 

[.Scott]

To a point, perhaps, but the best way to do it is to reference another published work that contains the critique, not to roll your own.

I couldn't find one. Many of the people who are putting together ITT realize that it isn't "it", but I haven't found anyone who has described the "we can report being conscious" as an important criteria. And the consequences are subtle. So even if they highlighted that criteria, it's still a couple more logic steps before it's connected to the Physics of the circuit.

 

[PeterDonis]

I couldn't find one.

Then, as I said, it's personal speculation and is off limits here.

 

[Robert Jansen]

I think that a lot of people fear AI because we fear what it may reflect about our very own worst nature, such as our tendency throughout history to try and exterminate each other.
But what if AI thinks nothing like us, or is superior to our beastial bestial nature?
Do you fear AI and what you do think truly sentient self-autonomous robots will think like when they arrive?

There is a school of thought that holds that a truly sentient AI (i.e., one that is self aware) will go insane in a relatively short time (measured in hours, possibly even minutes or seconds). Homo Sapiens, at the species level, should hope that view is correct.

 

[.Scott]

My problem in finding a citation was simply not casting the issue in the way it is addressed in publications.
Unfortunately, it's one of the mainstay topics in Philosophy - where it's fair game to change the meaning of a word in mid-sentence.

My complaint against the Integrated Information Theory is that it describes the conditions for creating "qualia" or "consciousness", but does not explain how it can avoid being purely epiphenomenalistic. This is where the mechanics of brain function are solid crossing into an area historically covered by Philosophers - surely to be viewed by both Physicists and Philosophers alike as a highly regrettable situation.

One of the problems with epiphenomenalism is called "self-stultification", (as described in "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"). I have quoted a portion of it here:

The most powerful reason for rejecting epiphenomenalism is the view that it is incompatible with knowledge of our own minds — and thus, incompatible with knowing that epiphenomenalism is true. (A variant has it that we cannot even succeed in referring to our own minds, if epiphenomenalism is true. See Bailey 2006 for this objection and Robinson 2012 for discussion.) If these destructive claims can be substantiated, then epiphenomenalists are, at the very least, caught in a practical contradiction, in which they must claim to know, or at least believe, a view which implies that they can have no reason to believe it.

My question:
I'm sorry, but someone is going to have to explain to me how that "view" is not substantiated. Tell me how it could ever be possible to know about something which by it's very definition cannot affect our universe.

If you need help answering this question, you could go to that encyclopedia article I cited, but it won't help. The epiphenomenalist defense is basically that there is a way for the consciousness ("M" in their diagrams) to affect the Physical ("P"), but that it doesn't count - apparently their "epi-" isn't purely "epi-".

But my question is still open. If I am missing something, let me know.

As would be expected, that encyclopedia article has ample citations on both sides of the argument. Regrettably, most of them are behind firewalls.

But getting back to the Integrated Information Theory: Until it can describe how their integrated system can not only create qualia (the "M") but allow that qualia to affect the physical (the "P"), it is arguably suffering a major hole.

Should I find IIT articles that show how their integrated systems do have physical effects beyond what would be expected from the same components in a non-integrated system, I would, of course, be very interested in what that Physics was and why it was tied so closely to their integrated information rules.

 

[PeterDonis]

My complaint against the Integrated Information Theory is that it describes the conditions for creating "qualia" or "consciousness", but does not explain how it can avoid being purely epiphenomenalistic.

I'm not familiar enough with IIT to have an opinion on whether this is a valid complaint, but I would not be surprised if it is.

In any case, as far as this thread's discussion is concerned, "qualia" that were epiphenomenalistic would by definition be irrelevant, since they can't have real world effects, and the concern being discussed in this thread is what real world effects AI might have. An AI that had epiphenomenalistic "qualia" would be no different as far as real world effects from an AI that had no "qualia" at all.

One of the problems with epiphenomenalism is called "self-stultification", (as described in "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy").

Indeed. However, I think this particular philosophical dispute is off topic for this thread. I don't think any epiphenomalists claim that epiphenomenal "qualia" can cause things to happen in the external world, which, as above, makes them irrelevant to this thread's discussion.