We misunderstand the term consciousness, and certainly the term “Devine Consciousness”. It is not ultimate emptiness, alla Buddhist theory, but ultimate fullness within which AI is a drop in an ocean. We are not deeply concerned about AI, only our egos are.
I don’t know. Is it really just my ego that loves the forms of life we have on this earth now? The lizards and polar bears and humans and oak trees? And that does not want them to be replaced by a disembodied entity that just sucks energy directly from the sun?
Ana, this is a fascinating and enlightening experiment-- thanks for sharing it with your fans! One of the things that scares me most is the seductive and sycophantic aspects of AI -- it's as if "it" has nailed the endless human need for affirmation- even if it's from a non-entity. I love your conclusion.
It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461, and here is a video of Jeff Krichmar talking about some of the Darwin automata, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Uh9phc1Ow
We misunderstand the term consciousness, and certainly the term “Devine Consciousness”. It is not ultimate emptiness, alla Buddhist theory, but ultimate fullness within which AI is a drop in an ocean. We are not deeply concerned about AI, only our egos are.
I don’t know. Is it really just my ego that loves the forms of life we have on this earth now? The lizards and polar bears and humans and oak trees? And that does not want them to be replaced by a disembodied entity that just sucks energy directly from the sun?
Ana, this is a fascinating and enlightening experiment-- thanks for sharing it with your fans! One of the things that scares me most is the seductive and sycophantic aspects of AI -- it's as if "it" has nailed the endless human need for affirmation- even if it's from a non-entity. I love your conclusion.
Agreed! It was that terrifying article you emailed me about this that sent me down this rabbit hole.
That article stays in my mind and terrifies me. I'd love to talk to you more about it...
Now I understand how you could have been a UU minister without being a UU. It was a mattet of semantics since it is not a divine religion. Praise God.
LOL! Brilliant, Robin.
Fascinating, Ana. Thank you for doing this enlightening but eerie experiment. And thanks for the beautiful ending. I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks, Barukh. It's eerie stuff, to say the least...
It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990's and 2000's. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I've encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there's lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar's lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman's roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461, and here is a video of Jeff Krichmar talking about some of the Darwin automata, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Uh9phc1Ow