AI is outperforming humans in both IQ and creativity in 2021

Can Artificial Intelligence figure out if planned obsolescence in consumer products has created unnecessary jobs since the 1950s?

Fighter planes designed in the late 30s and early 40s did 400 mph. Why give a damn about useless variations in crapmobiles rolling along the ground at less than 120 mph? I haven't been to an auto show in 40+ years
 
Stephen Palmer said:
Most people in this thread have convinced themselves that "we don't have a clue what consciousness is." The reality is somewhat different. A generally accepted view had been around for 40 years. When you factor in recent neurological evidence it's even better. I suspect this is a hangover of Cartesian thinking and religious thinking - that is, it's all nonphysical and really rather mysterious. Thank you, Descartes.
Click to expand...
I see two issues at play. One is definitely the definition of consciousness. The second though, whether one can derive consciousness by focusing on micro-level physical details, i.e., this path can lead to consciousness while this path precludes consciousness. I believe it is the latter that leads to the questions of AI developing consciousness.
 
Stephen Palmer said:
Most people in this thread have convinced themselves that "we don't have a clue what consciousness is." The reality is somewhat different. A generally accepted view had been around for 40 years. When you factor in recent neurological evidence it's even better. I suspect this is a hangover of Cartesian thinking and religious thinking - that is, it's all nonphysical and really rather mysterious. Thank you, Descartes.
Click to expand...
I think, Stephen, it is probably consciousness that gave rise to the belief in a soul.
 
The Cartesian mind body split certainly was a messy operation.
For a long time consciousness was thought to reside in the heart. Sometime during the renaissance it moved up to the brain.
 
Stephen Palmer said:
Most people in this thread have convinced themselves that "we don't have a clue what consciousness is." The reality is somewhat different. A generally accepted view had been around for 40 years. When you factor in recent neurological evidence it's even better. I suspect this is a hangover of Cartesian thinking and religious thinking - that is, it's all nonphysical and really rather mysterious. Thank you, Descartes.
Click to expand...
We know that consciousness is no doubt a product of the brain, however there is no definitive explanation to how the brain produces consciousness. If anything, it's become more complicated due to recent studies on the nature of freewill and ideas involving quantum mechanics (microtubules). From what I remember there are four leading models regarding consciousness, Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's model being one of them (quantum states and microtubules). However, I'll admit I haven't followed the work of Penrose and Hameroff et al. that closely.

In Psychology there is what's known as the Easy and Hard Problems. The former deals with understanding how the brain works (which is still a work in progress) the latter dealing with how those processes produce our conscious experience (which might never be fully understood). What we do know is that your conscious experience is a 'simulation' based on sensory data (vision, auditory, olfactory, pressure, etc.) processed by the brain. However, there's research that illustrates the possibility that freewill itself may be an illusion and that consciousness (the totality of your consciousness experience, including your thoughts and perception of free will) maybe nothing more than a simulation based on certain brain activity.

Descartes' concept of Cartesian Dualism was no doubt inspired by religious belief, from what I remember of him it was his scientific definition of the 'soul'. However, the idea that consciousness is immaterial predates Descartes and the Abrahamic religions.

Based on my experience on here, I don't know how many 'Chronsters' adhere to ideas of those like Descartes. However, I'm only speaking for myself as a Secular Humanist.
 
Last edited:
Cthulhu.Science said:
The fuss about AI and job loss is the silliest argument of them all. Jobs are always in transition. There are few jobs in that existed 100 years ago that exist today. And the ones that do are generally very different. There is a financial term for shedding jobs through new technology -- it is called increased productivity. That is each man-hour of labor produces more stuff --- OR few people are producing the same economic value for the employer.

This has been going on since at least the stone age. Pre-stone age records are hard to come by.

How is AI going to affect life in other ways.
What does one do when their Robotic Romantic Partner breaks up with them? Chatbots are already doing it.

Can you see it. "You don't own me!"
Click to expand...
The job situation is the only thing practical to be concerned about.
Being upset about a machine breaking up a fake relationship is not.

That's just weird.
 
Has anyone seen that episode of Black Mirror (White Christmas I think) were a 'cookie'/digital clone of a woman is forced into operating her 'real selfs' home? It's quite frightening really, and not that far away from becoming a possibility.

When something we have created gains sentience, what right will have to force it to do our bidding?
 
KGeo777 said:
The job situation is the only thing practical to be concerned about.
Being upset about a machine breaking up a fake relationship is not.

That's just weird.
Click to expand...

My point is that the types of jobs available is constantly changing. It doesn't matter whether there is "AI" or "Robots" or "check-out price scanners" or "power looms" or "Windmills" or what the nature of the technology is.

The UK coal industry had well over a million jobs 100 years ago -- Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, and to 2,000 in 2015 -- Not one of those jobs was lost to AI.

The minutiae of what specific job an "AI" technology eliminates has very little bearing on future society. If research jobs are lost or significantly curtailed by AI; If one manager can do all the art of a current animation department; If AI takes over voice-acting work for cartoons; If AI reduces other people's jobs; These are just more unemployed people and irrelevant jobs in an ever changing world. This doesn't affect the nature of society in any meaningful way. Just more "coal miners" out of work.

But unlike a chainsaw, a power loom or a checkout price scanner, there is the illusion that "AI" can create qualitative changes in human society.
There are experiments of human "relationships" with AI going on right now. The Turing Test was passed years ago.
This is potentially society changing. Good or Bad? It's hard to know and interesting to think about.
 
CrazyKB said:
That's not taken seriously ...
Click to expand...
By whom?

Isn't it enough that one person takes it seriously? Particularly if it is the "wrong person" hell-bent on being a protagonist in a truly weird and horrifying story.

Remember the lesson learned from David Berkowitz:
It is OK to talk to your dog, but it is not OK to murder people when it tells you to.
 
Cthulhu.Science said:
By whom?

Isn't it enough that one person takes it seriously? Particularly if it is the "wrong person" hell-bent on being a protagonist in a truly weird and horrifying story.

Remember the lesson learned from David Berkowitz:
It is OK to talk to your dog, but it is not OK to murder people when it tells you to.
Click to expand...
Your point is well taken. However, what if your dog tries to blame the carpet for making him poo on it, or purchases his favorite treat on Amazon via your credit card? I once new a dog that roamed the neighborhood stealing cars and shipping them overseas. They're very industrious creatures.
 
Last edited:
paranoid marvin said:
Has anyone seen that episode of Black Mirror (White Christmas I think) were a 'cookie'/digital clone of a woman is forced into operating her 'real selfs' home? It's quite frightening really, and not that far away from becoming a possibility.

When something we have created gains sentience, what right will have to force it to do our bidding?
Click to expand...
I don't believe that would occur via happenstance, and if it could be done we're (incredibly) far off from being able to do so. Emotions are created in specific areas of the brain, thus it can't be processing power alone that determines things such as emotions, which are a component of sentience. And why only worry about A.I, why not animal rights? I know that cows experience pain and fear and I find that troubling, even though I place parts of them (cooked of course) on a bun, with cheese, mayo, mustard, onions with a side of fries.

What worries me is whether I'll open my door one day and see a large muscular man asking if Sara Connor lives at my address.
 
I suspect that conciousness isn't some mystical property of intelligence so much as the obvious result of social creatures running empathy models on each other that eventually get turned back on ourselves. Solitary intelligent beings would skip it and be just fine

We think it is important because that part of our mind thinks about little else.
 
I wonder if it makes more sense to discuss degrees or levels of consciousness rather than treating it as a binary state with a big chasm between yes and no. This might make it easier to discuss the various qualities that describe consciousness and use that to describe how conscious an AI (or an animal or a plant) might be.
 
Swank said:
I suspect that conciousness isn't some mystical property of intelligence so much as the obvious result of social creatures running empathy models on each other that eventually get turned back on ourselves. Solitary intelligent beings would skip it and be just fine

We think it is important because that part of our mind thinks about little else
Click to expand...
'Mirror neurons' appear to play a role in empathy, the same neurons that are used in observational learning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
A Sci Fi novel with telepathic sex, furry humans, cats, space dragons, and the birth of a new universe Book Search 3
Ursa major Cave discovered on Moon "could be home for humans" Science & Nature 8
Jubal_Harshaw (Found) Humans Fighting Wars for Aliens Book Search 8
C Looking: In future humans about to evolve get attacked by other aliens. Book Search 0
N Apocalyptic sci-fi with nanobots and enhanced humans Book Search 0

Similar threads


Back
Top