Role of AI in Shaping Future Philosophical Discourse - Emmanuel Katto

[emmanuelkatto]

Hey Everyone, I am Emmanuel Katto. As advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) continue to accelerate, I'm curious about the potential impacts on philosophical discourse and thought. e.g. Can AI ever achieve a form of consciousness or subjective experience similar to humans? What implications would this have for theories of mind and personal identity?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks!
Emmanuel Katto

[Impenitent]

AI can be programmed to respond to input

if AI can program itself from a "blank slate," consciousness may be shown...

outside of self programming, I don't know if consciousness is there

-Imp

[promethean75]

Since biological intentional systems (organisms) are motivated entirely by the pleasure principle, to the extent that they think (like humans), what they think will consist entirely of those mental objects and ideas that are associated with and/or are useful for achieving a kind of emotional stasis or well being. Everything u believe and want to do is conditioned by experiences and behaviors that are associated with positive outcomes. Happy thoughts, good deeds, all that shit, are not good in themselves, but good becuz they have been useful in making u, and intentional system (in Daniel D's sense) feel good. This feeling of goodness is also conditioned and generated by the interaction of chemicals and hormones with your brain piece.

Now what of a synthetic robot that doesn't experience neurotransmitter and hormonal influences on its intentional behavior? When the robot says 'hi, friend', that can't be an expression of being at ease, of comradery, of security, of trust, etc. It's an unintentional script following and there is no purpose in the expression. That's to say the robot's behavior is not motivated by the pleasure principle; it isn't thinking intentionally to avoid painful, unpleasant experiences. It doesn't say 'friend' becuz it doesn't want to be your enemy.

That's a soft argument against AI but it isn't good enough. The strong argument for AI says that organic systems and functions can be duplicated by complex enough synthetic materials... so they should be able to reproduce identical processes such as thinking and feeling.

[promethean75]

Now it could be the case that a special kind of spirit foam is created in quantum space when the wave function of a positively charged potassium molecule crossing the synaptic cleft collapses. A special event in nature where a certain unique alchemy of material stuff causes an emergent property to superimpose itself upon the material and presto, u have a self aware spirit living in an organism or sumthin.