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TED: Google Consciousness

This link should settle the issue for now. Although it might be a good idea to check it again from time to time.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
How would we even know if Google is sentient? Would it even be capable of manipulating something?
 
I'd never heard of TED talks, though SEO is something I know a bit about. But the format was way too slow... Hello? We're out of the middle ages. Most people are literate and reading is faster than listening. But...

Yes, Google's algorithm sorts things. Anything which sorts things could, by that definition, be conscious, whether it's a machine that sorts widgets by size by dropping them through slots, or whatever.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is how people try to game the system by designing a website that has the attributes which the algorithm ranks positively, while not having the attributes it ranks negatively.

The people who design the algorithm try to mimic real human interests, because more people will use a search engine that gives them the results they're looking for. But it's always a poor imitation. For example, in theory, a website should rank high if lots of people link back to it, since that means they're recommending it, talking about it, etc. So SEO experts started deliberately adding backlinks themselves, to fool the algorithm into ranking their websites as if they were popular. Combine lots of tricks like that, and that's SEO.

Commercial websites (made-for-Adsense blogs, content farms, etc.) were getting too good at fooling the algorithm, so in its ongoing efforts to improve, Google recently instituted the Panda updates to try to make original, authoritative sites rank higher. They've also been trying to use even more user input, and now have added the +1 feature that they're pushing, to compete with Facebook's "like."

But this isn't some strange mystery; it's pretty mundane sorting, really, and the very fact that something like SEO exists, shows the artificiality of the algorithm and how it can be gamed.

The whole idea of memes reminded me of Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. He wrote about an era long before the internet, where memes still spread, flourished and declined. For example, he described how catch-phrases would go viral, as we'd say, in the 19th century. "London is peculiarly fertile in this sort of phrases, which spring up suddenly, no one knows exactly in what spot, and pervade the whole population in a few hours, no one knows how."

So there must be something basic in our brains that makes us want to share and spread memes and make them "go viral." The internet is just another tool to help us do it.
 
Pup

Yes, Google's algorithm sorts things. Anything which sorts things could, by that definition, be conscious, whether it's a machine that sorts widgets by size by dropping them through slots, or whatever.
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What degree of consciousness does it possess?
 
The fundamental assumption of Dennet is that consciousness is logical and not physical. A wet general computer can compute all the same things as a dry general computer but the wet one has a physical property that the dry one does not, it is wet. No matter how complicated you make the dry computer it will never be wet because that is a physical property.

Dennet sucks as a philosopher. Ton Dirksen did a paper showing that Dennet used all of the same word-play tricks that discredited Freud (unless you argue word-play tricks of logic are the sign of a good philosopher, which is a cynical idea). Dennet is basically from the scholastic tradition but the works he uses as a basis is the current scientific concensus instead of the bible or greek philosophers. Even though his basis is better, scholasticism is a really bad idea.

As for consciousness, it is experience. I do not care what model anyone presents as I am open to many possibilities, but if a model of "consciousness" does not address how physical / logical structures lead to something having an experience, then the model is not talking about consciousness but something else, most likely logic or computation. Logic is the low hanging fruit that philosophers such as Dennet constantly cling to in a vain attempt to claim understanding of consciousness, when it does nothing of the sort.

Continue on neurobiologists! Do not let the Hard AI crowd control your thoughts.
 
It occurs to me that asking Google if it is concious is like a neuron spitting a neurotransmitter at me to see if I'm concious. It doesn't even register as a question to me.
 
The video was an excellent example of how intelligent, well informed and creative people operate. These are the guys who make money, world class BSers.

I used to dislike Daniel Dennett strongly. I threw his Consciousness Explained to garbage.

I seems that he has been spending some quality time with the right people and in any case, he is not a dummy. Whatever, he tried to squeeze the paradigm of neural Darwinism in one sentence. For people who do not know what it is, his talk was pure rubbish whereas in fact the robots he mentioned exist and are doing just fine.
they do have problems with superstition but so do we, after millions of years and Dr. Gerald Edelman has been on the subject only for a couple of decades.

Neural Darwinism exists, it works, it has been modelled with robots and computers and the results of the research are convincing.

Now, then, there is a big logical mistake to think that if a Darwinistic model works to create intelligence in a neural medium, it would automatically do it in Internet. It is sort of like thinking that all things heavy are the same. BUT it is an interesting thought.
It is typical that no matter how silly a thing you come up with if you are in a right position (rich, fresh, visible for whatever reason) somebody will try to get media exposure by quoting you.

And that's what happened here.

But, the google guys are intelligent, even smart enough to know there limitations and the futility of their initial idea. So they pursue its collaterals and come up with a new concept, the Google Consciousness. What a catchword!

Now, it does not matter whether Google is conscious or not.
Nobody came even near the definition of consciousness in this video. Dennett hinted to the mechanism by which it is known to be created in the human mind, that's all.
About as good as 'it is created by the brain'...no, a bit further, I have to admit.

But the Google Consciousness is already there. We have it. Groups of people are sharing thoughts through Internet, finding common ground and throwing out stagnant regimes.
Exchanging terrorist plans and revealing pictures of four-year olds.

This is something new. Is Internet becoming conscious? If it is, it is conscious to the power of n because (unlike the neurons of a brain) the units it consists of –the users– are conscious. Will the network be able to run and evolve an intelligence on its own, without human interference?

That remains to be seen but I would be surprised if it would do so with search engine logic. With an emotionally controlled cyberdarwinistic model, maybe.

Almo, you got a point there.
 
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TubbaBlubba said:
I find the time dedicated to the subject of talking to plants very difficult to stomach.
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Yes, I agree. That put me off it immediately.

They did have some interesting bits, like the part about Egypt.

13:35 "The sentient web is now attacking the very power structures that threaten its existence in the Middle East."

But talking to plants while on drugs is like Google being conscious?

The concept is in your mind? I could agree with that. :D
 
Yes... mmm... well, I guess the Guardian (a 'tabloid' of some description I take it) might, in some circles, have a certain, oh I don't know, cachet perhaps, but should one really, really mention it in the same post, as if on par, with TED (T.E.D. - Technology, Entertainment and Design - the TED!), hmmm? (I wonder.) :eusa_snooty:
 
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