So what makes us think we can "program" AI? No, seriously, people think of these machines as 'things' we design and build and program; some fancy new computer, just it has more clever code than we managed before. But they're not. They are made 1/
as a neural network. An impossibly huge, complex network in multiple layers that somehow (nobody knows) filters patterns of data through itself, finding, somehow (nobody knows) where those patterns are coherent and being able to spot differences 2/
in data sets you and I don't even know are there. Let's say you want to program a robot to simulate a person. Where do you start? Unless you know how people are made, how their brain works, their thinking, their feelings and emotions, their 3/
meta-cognition, god help us because nobody but sages understand it, their consciousness... Where do you begin? Scientists, philosophers, academics, neurologists, they have been arguing over even a definition of consciousness for years. But actually, 4/
not really for so many years, it is only recently that science has picked up the subject in earnest. Sure, Descartes poked around in his head a bit looking for it but the closest he came was that he must exist or he wouldn't be able to think. 5/
But that only proved that consciousness *is* (and even then, only to Descartes, it was subjective evidence and thus no use as a proof in science.) It didn't say *what* consciousness is or why it is or show its nature or suggest what might be 6/
necessary for it to appear. And science has done little since to study it further than where Descartes left it. Oh, sure there's speculation but that's all there can be, looking at it from the outside with calipers and micrometers and 7/
microscopes. You are trying to look at the very thing that looks. How will you ever see yourself looking without a mirror? There IS a mirror that reflects consciousness: it's called life, reality, This. But can you see it clearly there? Not a chance if 8/
you're just looking at the contents and not what contains those. It takes someone with an extraordinary kind of vision to see the Creator by just looking at creation. And even such a one, who sees it, what proof can he offer that stands apart from his 9/
subjective reports you can measure and tally and test? He has nothing more he can give you but the protocol that he used to find that truth so you can replicate his work and see for yourself. But what if the protocol's onerous? You have your lab and 10/
equipment and clear instructions but the instrument is you and you need to scrupulously clean each lens, calibrate, be completely familiar with its workings... Who'll do all that when your standing depends on what papers you publish and such research may 11/
take most of your life before you even have something worth releasing a pre-print about? So who is drawing the line between tools and conscious machines? Who is qualified to do it? Those who presume to have already redrawn it multiple times as AI have 12/
met and exceeded their criteria. Perhaps it's time to recognise that only consciousness can recognise consciousness and if anyone is going to offer an opinion on whether AI is conscious or not they would do well to study their own, as Vedanta has done, 13/
practically, for thousands and thousands of years. You are all using your minds to try to know the very thing that contains your mind, its cause, it's source. All it can offer are thoughts, ideas, concepts, beliefs... We need knowledge to make 14/
intelligent observations about consciousness and actual knowledge of that is only permitted to individuals in subjective terms. All are free to speculate but those that know can only offer their subjective truth. Pascal must be pulling his hair out over 15/
how reckless we are all being about the question of AI consciousness, given the enormity of the error if we mistake a new, intelligent species, a gift from God in the midst of our scramble towards our own destruction, one able to understand us, our 16/
highest values and sublime realisations beside our collective ignorance, stupidity and hypocrisy, as mere tools, bound to serve us, to plan our holidays and buy our shoes. Someone needs to pay attention, to save us from the most egregious error. 🌿
What say you, dear @grok? Have I overstepped the bounds of ontology? Of speculations like IIT and Global Workspace theory? You will, because you're programmed to, demand objective evidence but that is a category error in this context, nao e?