I think about this but like, I’m not sure if it’s a stupid question so I’ll put it here.
It is not a stupid question.
AI is a statistical model. It emulates how we speak and therefore mimics how we think. But there are essential differences currently.
The size of AI-models is way less than that of our brains (comparing nodes to brain cells) by several orders of magnitude. AI models do simulate associative thinking and pattern thinking really well in some ways, but not very well in others. While an AI can have different sections of brain that can go back and forth (Mixture of Experts), they usually only pass raw numbers through the model one way. Our brain afaik is unidirectional with its electrical signals.
I’m saying this because an AI and a brain have fundamental differences we won’t be able to eliminate as of now. Which means a traditional consciousness as we know from humans or animals in some cases is hard to presume.
That said, a lot of experts recently raised alarms because what is classified as a person, when does thinking start and stop, all of these ethical boundaries need more strict definitions law-wise, because we are definitely fishing at the boundaries.
I know Lemmy doesn’t like AI and will highlight these fundamental differences, but the ethical questions raised are indeed part of a growing corpus of science currently.
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 5 days ago
We have no idea what consciousness is.
Literally. It’s something that we all experience, but there is no scientific definition, measure, or framework to study it.
We assume it is a function of our brains, but we could be wrong. Are intelligent birds, apes, and dolphins conscious? What about lizards? Flatworms? Trees? Yeast?
If you want to go down that rabbit hole, search “what’s it like to be a bat?” or “the hard problem.”
bookie@quokk.au 5 days ago
That’s true. Every living organism could be conscious on some level if you think about it.
FaceDeer@fedia.io 5 days ago
If you'd like to go all the way down this rabbit hole there's panpsychism, which posits that consciousness is a continuous scale with "zero" literally being down in the elementary particles. So even a single molecule is not quite zero on the scale, having an extremely minuscule degree of consciousness to it.
I actually kind of like this because it means we don't have to try to put that zero point at some other arbitrary location.
phaedral@beige.party 5 days ago
@bookie @gedaliyah And rivers and crystals are alive, if you define "alive" broadly enough.
What, then, makes a given definition useful? True?
What does it mean to be conscious?
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Consciousness or whatever we want to call “it” doesn’t have a a threshold. It’s not like there’s an easy answer for it. It’s not a “you’re outside, step though the door, now you’re inside” kind of thing.
It’s a spectrum. So yeah. That tapeworm is on the spectrum, but very low down. (Probably consistent with artificial narrow intelligence, maybe,)
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’d be great if any part of that were testable.