(NOTE:...somewhere hidden in the following are the clues to eternal youth and a $1 million dollar prize...only by reading the entire post from beginning to end will anyone have any chance of acquiring either of these highly desirable assets!)
Wrong word in hilite. The one you wanted is "if." "Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term that can be defined in this way," their exact words, does not mean "we don't know what consciousness is," but rather "people aren't even talking about the same thing here."
We don't know what gravity is, or where it comes from, exactly. But when we talk about gravity, we're talking about the same thing. It's a scientific term that can be defined by its effects. Consciousness can't be defined except in terms useless to anyone who doesn't already know what we call consciousness. Look at your next few paragraphs. I'll summarize them: "C'mooooon you guys, consciousness is totally a thing, we all experience it." And we do. And any one person's definition could probably be approached scientifically.
But your definition isn't mine. It isn't Piggy's. It isn't Pixy's. All of us, when we hear "consciousness," are thinking of drastically different and mutually incompatible things. And there's no way of telling a person that their definition is wrong because it's all subjective. So any decent scientist would rather write the whole thing off. It can't be defined scientifically. You come up with an empirical test of consciousness that everyone will agree on, then we'll talk.
But that is exactly the conclusion I was presented with. That we do not know what consciousness is. That there is (as you say) something that requires definition and we don’t know what that ‘something’ is. Your admonition ‘…but we’re all thinking / talking about the same thing …’ is, I’m sorry, ridiculous…especially given the gravity of the issue. At JREF alone we’ve had tens of thousands of posts on the issue, many from individuals with great experience in the matter, and there has yet to emerge anything remotely resembling a consensus (except that there isn’t one).
If you doubt the scientific position, check out the legal one. There’s no ambiguity there. The scientists may be able to play games with their conclusions, but the lawyers can’t. Things have to be crystal clear or there can be severe consequences (lawsuits that shut down research / put corporate directors in jail..etc.)…and if there is one conclusion that can be reached from those legal papers, it is that things are very far from crystal clear when it comes to consciousness and what it does, in fact, mean.
I sent emails to quite a number of cognitive scientists asking them to comment on that quote. Most agreed with it outright…and a number simply complained that the whole thing is a bloody mess. And there you go again with these vast generalizations. We are most indisputably NOT all talking about the same thing…except by default (the assumption being that we all experience this consciousness thing equivalently and can thus adjudicate its experience accurately). I’d say the majority of people haven’t a clue what they’re talking about when it comes to this issue (beyond a conviction that there’s something to talk about). Kaggen presented something reasonably coherent. It’s not just a matter of describing it, it’s a matter of being sufficiently acquainted with what you’re attempting to describe. There simply are not that many people with that degree of experience, integrity, and insight (which explains an awful lot…unfortunately).
Here’s an example of what I’d regard as an intimate acquaintance with the reality of human consciousness. This was written by a 7 year old boy (no bio or IT training what-so-ever!):
“Destruction is finding being in matter.”
I won’t bother going into an exploration of what this means (or how a boy of 7 could achieve an insight most seventy year-olds couldn’t even comprehend). The fundamental issue re: human consciousness is .... is there an ontological reality (being) at the heart of consciousness…and how is this ‘being’ related to all these various forms of intelligent activity (‘behavior’…embodied or otherwise) that the cog sci community is currently attempting to parse. Science doesn’t have the ability to answer this question (can’t define it) and many scientists simply dismiss or ignore the evidence that does implicate ‘being’, preferring to confine themselves to familiar / intelligible paradigms (sound like anyone you know Dodger?). But just because it isn’t falsifiable doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist (it just means that there’s a convenient excuse to pretend that it doesn’t exist)! Thus, the issue becomes described / explained within these familiar paradigms…and it takes some real effort to discover that these so-called explanations are often as much disinformation as information. When we’re dealing with a forest / trees of these dimensions ( ‘ the most complex object in the known universe ‘ [and it's me!] and all that), how surprising can it be that even the most knowledgeable experience cognitive biases….or simple ignorance (are there limits to analysis…apparently)..
And gravity, I’m afraid, is a laughable analogy. Gravity is a fairly mundane phenomena and its conditions are easily identified and isolated (to the degree that science has the ability to accurately model the issue). Its activity is reasonably well understood even if its genesis is not. Consciousness, on the other hand, gets broken down into so many different ‘behaviors’ that it either becomes incomprehensible or meaningless (as Heutel accurately pointed out). And when we talk about gravity, we aren’t talking about something that somehow defines the dominant life-form on this planet…and we aren’t talking about something that is attempting to be instantiated into potentially new life forms. That makes the requirement for explicit and accurate definition slightly more relevant. So it’s not quite sufficient to blindly conclude that because of your default definition ( “ we’re all talking about the same thing “ ) it can be assumed that ‘we’ (whoever that is) appreciate the dimensions of the issue sufficiently to justify the conclusion that we know what we’re talking about, let alone that ‘we’ can make substantial choices based on this position.
As for ‘if’ there is a ‘something’ that can even be coherently defined…given that we’re talking here about what it means to be a human being…wouldn’t it be appropriate to err on the side of caution (especially given that many feel it can be coherently defined…just not in what are currently scientifically acceptable terms). rather than conclude that, because it is so problematic we’ll just skip that step and barrel ahead with whatever form of speculative instantiation we can come up with? A beginning might simply be mandating ethics studies in computer science programs. At present, it doesn’t seem to even be on the horizon…and these people are explicitly talking about creating a new life-form (read the papers…those are the words they use). Methinks somebody’s missing some kind of boat here.
If a human hires a person for a job and that person commits an action that kills his wife, where does the responsibility for that action lie?
Or here’s another one: Assuming the ability to have children, who decides if they will have them, and who decides what varieties and degrees of children should be available for what areas of society?
You're making a mountain out of a molehill, and taking a very long time to do so as well. We already have plenty of regulations which cover the actions of general intelligent agents. That these agents are machines doesn't mean we throw out all case law and ethical constructs because herp derp artificial intelligence. There'll be more than enough novel moral questions (like, is it murder to put an AI in sleep mode and never wake it up? Is it assault to suspend it without consent?) to worry about the obvious crap.
I’m making a mountain out of a molehill? I’m not making a mountain out of anything, I’m simply asking is a mountain actually there? I can’t see any other way to represent the thing. AI / AGI is the creation of a new variety of potentially human-equivalent life That is explicitly what they are discussing in those legal papers (did you read them…shall I go get some quotes?). Precisely how is this not a mountain? What, in your opinion would be a mountain-sized issue… just so I can get some sense of what variety of metric you are applying here?
Imagine the firestorm that would be created if some biotech company announced tomorrow that it had found a way to ‘grow’ a new human in a lab! Would that be a mountain? Yes…No? In many ways, this is even more dramatic because AI isn’t even human life…it is something else (or is it ‘human life’?). Maybe ‘it’ will tell us what ‘it’ is when / if ‘it’ arrives.
Actually…it just occurred to me why this indifference exists (apart from the usual suspects). There are simply no reference points. It’s kind of like traumatic shock…in slow motion. It’s not just a mountain, it’s a mountain on Jupiter (and Jupiter is supposed to be all gas!). It’s utterly incomprehensible (how can you apply a metric to something that is inconceivable?). What does a new ‘life-form’ even mean?!?!? A real, live…Data…thing…thing…? What will it do …?...?...? What will happen? The simple fact is…nobody actually knows…and not because it hasn’t happened yet, but because it is simply beyond our understanding (generally speaking).
Now, I'm just puzzled and curious. What the hell are you talking about? The "biomed community" is building '"bio-AIs?" What? Wouldn't that just be Is?
I’m not sure what this statement means. If you’re asking about the bio-AI thing…it’s just nonsense. Obviously consciousness is biologically based (so far). There’s a biotech industry and an IT industry. IT is headed straight for AI. Biotech has got eons to go before it accomplishes engineered intelligent life of any kind…but I suppose it’s hypothetically possible. Interesting premise though. What kind of consciousness might a different form of highly sophisticated biological life exhibit (and why) and what points of conflict might occur with IT based consciousness (and why). Which forms would have what advantages (and why)? Pure speculation…the kind of stuff dumb movies are created out of.
No, that wasn't what I suggested. I suggested that you were underestimating them, and the danger of hubris was a popular theme. I also said: "Most people involved would agree there are potential risks with powerful technologies, and there have already been numerous discussions, meetings, seminars, books, and articles about the rewards and risks of AI, and how we can maximize the one while minimizing the other". By 'most people involved', I meant those involved in the field; perhaps I should have spelled it out.
My view is that insiders are well aware of the potential dangers, and the public has a certain unease about these technologies on a large scale (because they don't understand them), and will demand safeguards.
Describing the creation of a human-equivalent life-form as merely a 'new technology' is an understatement by any standard. Doubtless 'the experts' understand some of the relevant issues to some degree...but it is telling that currently the vast majority of the discussion seems to be related to the technical issues...with the moral / ethical / psychological / social issues being peripheral. Interestingly...many of these very subjects intrude into the technical discussions (because 'human / intelligent behavior' is often the subject in question) and thus compel at least some consideration. I guess it can at least be said that you AI folks are being exposed to insights into human nature that many simply would never be. Whether that results in greater wisdom or more skewed understanding (re: Chomsky) is another interesting question.
So should ethics become mandatory in the comp sci curriculum (currently it’s typically included amongst a whole pile of humanities options that most science undergrads take [if my time in engineering was any indication] begrudgingly if at all [they want their degree, they want it fast, they want to make money, and they want to get laid {not necessarily in that order}….ethics ranks somewhere below clean underwear as a priority])?
