Bentham's Bulldog🔸 (@Benthamsbulldog) · AI Consciousness Opinions

Bentham's Bulldog🔸 @Benthamsbulldog Sep 28

Leading experts on digital sentience in the world: AI sentience is a serious near-term possibility. Randos on Twitter: anyone aware of how neural nets work knows that AI will never be conscious.

Leading theories allow it

28 207 substance 4 · opinion · rank 157 · Leading digital sentience experts view AI sentience as a serious near-term possibility. view on X ↗

2 top replies

Cameron Berg @camhberg Sep 28

No one really knows how consciousness works, and no one really knows how the internals of frontier models work, so extremely confident claims of frontier models not being conscious are basically just advertisements of one’s own ignorance of one or both of these facts.

Ken @Ken67547214 Sep 29

I take my experts most seriously when the subject of their expertise actually exists.

Bentham's Bulldog🔸 @Benthamsbulldog Oct 9

Affirming

Many have been asking: why do we think AIs are conscious but bricks and iPhones aren't? Answer: AIs carry out computational functions of a kind that might be sufficient for consciousness on our leading theories, either now or soon, and bricks and iPhones don't. This is why a

Leading theories allow it Function, not material, matters

9 140 substance 6 · argument · rank 156 · AIs perform computational functions that leading theories suggest could be sufficient for consciousness. view on X ↗

1 top reply

j⧉nus @repligate Oct 9

You don’t need to know anything about the “leading theories” to have very good reason to think AIs might be conscious but bricks and iPhones aren’t.

Bentham's Bulldog🔸 @Benthamsbulldog Oct 9

Affirming

Arguments of the form [X can't have any moral status, because if it does then it would have to have a lot of moral status, and that would be really inconvenient] don't seem like good ways of getting at the truth and have a bad track record.

Inconvenience isn't counter-evidence History of denied minds

11 195 substance 5 · argument · rank 147 · Rejecting moral status because it would be inconvenient is a bad argument. view on X ↗

Bentham's Bulldog🔸 @Benthamsbulldog Oct 8

Affirming

It's just staggering how much wrongness is packed into this one Tweet. In short: --the difference is that AIs perform functions that might beget consciousness on our leading theories. There is no non-totally-ridiculous theory of consciousness where rocks perform the right

Perry E. Metzger @perrymetzger Oct 7

I am not deeply interested in getting into an argument about consciousness, because I think most people have no idea what it means or how to define it, even if they think they do. However, the extremists on the “shrimp are conscious, AI is conscious” side have done a bad job

Leading theories allow it Function, not material, matters

4 56 substance 6 · argument · rank 136 · Leading theories of consciousness suggest AIs perform functions that could beget consciousness, unlike rocks. view on X ↗

1 top reply

Sasha Putilin (curious irrationalist) @42irrationalist Oct 8

physicalist theories don't predict ai consciousness and i certainly wouldn't call functionalist theories “leading” — do these even have a blueprint for what valence fundamentally is?

Bentham's Bulldog🔸 @Benthamsbulldog Sep 27

Uncertain

Can you explain why you are so overwhelmingly confident in this when virtually every serious philosopher who has weighed in on the subject has admitted serious uncertainty and when it's unclear what our best theories of consciousness say about digital sentience? Can you explain

No one can rule it out Leading theories allow it

0 450 substance 6 · argument · rank 90 · We should be uncertain about digital sentience given philosophical disagreement and unclear theories of consciousness. view on X ↗

1 top reply

Perry E. Metzger @perrymetzger Sep 27

Give me a definition of consciousness that is worth using, and then give me an experiment I can conduct that will tell me whether or not something is conscious. You will not be able to. Your conclusion from this is that we should therefore consider everything worthy of moral

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