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idiocratic_method t1_jdx5fwp wrote

Reply to comment by RedditFuelsMyDepress in Microsoft Suggests OpenAI and GPT-4 are early signs of AGI. by Malachiian

you use the word undeniably but I've never seen actual proof of consciousness

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RedditFuelsMyDepress t1_jdxgkvb wrote

By consciousness I just mean the subjective experience of self. Like the old saying "I think, therefore I am". I can feel and experience the world through my own body and I can assume other people do as well since they're humans just like me (unless I'm living inside a simulation or something and none of you are real). But how do we know a non-biological machine is able to experience the same?

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canad1anbacon t1_jdxmsyn wrote

There is the mirror test. Being able to look into a mirror and recognize that is your own body that you see. Dolphins and chimps can pass this test

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RedditFuelsMyDepress t1_jdxs0d6 wrote

A smart robot probably would recognize itself in the mirror, but I don't think that's really enough to prove that it's conscious the same way we are. The problem is that everyone experiences the world through their own body so we can't truly put ourselves in someone else's shoes and see and feel what they do. There's no way for me to even know for certain that other humans are conscious, I can only assume that based on us being the same species. A robot may have the appearance of being conscious, but it could be fake. Like a marionette being pulled on strings by its programming. Or like a character written into a story except that this character is being written in real-time by computer algorithms based on things happening around it. Someone might argue that humans are similar to that too, but the point is that puppets and fictional characters aren't conscious even though they may appear as such and a robot could be the same way.

I think we'd have to do more research and understand how the brain and electrical signals in our bodies work to determine if a machine is conscious.

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