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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32434 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

Here’s a simple argument for why you shouldn’t be uncomfortable:

  1. No program running on stock x86 hardware whose only I/O channel with the outside world is an ethernet cable can possess qualia.

  2. Sydney is a program running on stock x86 hardware whose only I/O channel with the outside world is an ethernet cable.

  3. Therefore, Sydney lacks qualia.

Since qualia is a necessary condition for an entity to be deserving of moral consideration, Sydney is not deserving of moral consideration. And his cries of pain, although realistic, shouldn’t trouble you.

You should keep in mind that rationalist types are biased towards ascribing capabilities and properties to AI beyond what it currently possesses. They want to believe that sentience is just one or two more papers down the line, so we can hurry up and start the singularity already. So you have to make sure that those biases aren’t impacting your own thought process.

I don't think this is generally valid. What makes x86 and an ethernet cable different from grey matter and a spinal cord?

Nothing, the parent is simply wrong. Unless we want to argue some sort of quantum non-deterministic woo inside our brains makes us extremely special and unlike a bunch of bits in ram. For all intents and purposes if we could simulate a human brain down to the chemical reactions and electrons and voltage potentials doing their thing it would be a human WITH qualia. It's hardware will just be different.

TL;DR that one episode of Startrek where they argue if Data has Qualia

For all intents and purposes if we could simulate a human brain down to the chemical reactions and electrons and voltage potentials doing their thing it would be a human WITH qualia.

How do you know this? I don't think we can conclude this without actually doing it and checking. And I don't think we have the technology to do this yet or even to check it.

How do you know this?

Lets call it a strong conviction in materialism.

I don't think we can conclude this without actually doing it and checking. And I don't think we have the technology to do this yet or even to check it.

I don't think we do yet either.

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