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glass_superman t1_ixfso7p wrote

Reply to comment by d4em in The Ethics of Policing Algorithms by ADefiniteDescription

Consciousness emerged from life as life advanced. Why not from computers?

You could argue that we wouldn't aim to create a conscious computer. But neither did nature aim to create consciousness and here we are.

So I absolutely do think that there's a chance that it simply emerges. Just like it did before. Every day some unconscious gametes get together and, at some point, consciousness emerges, right? If carbon, why not silicon?

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d4em t1_ixguiui wrote

Well, first, the comparison you're drawing between something created by nature and a machine designed by us as a tool is incorrect. We were not designed. Its not that "nature" did not aim to create consciousness, its that nature does not have any aim at all.

Second, our very being is fundamentally different from what a computer is. Experience is a core part of being alive. Intellectual function is built on top of it. You're proposing the same could work backwards; that you could build experience on top of cold mechanical calculations. I say it can't.

Part of the reason is the hardware computers are working on, they are entirely digital. They can't do "maybes."

Another part of the reason is that computers do not "get together" and have their unconsciousness meet. They are calculators, mechanically providing the answer to a sum. They don't wander, they don't try, they do not do anything that was not a part of the explicit instruction embedded in their design.

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glass_superman t1_ixhifzy wrote

Is this not just carbon chauvinism?

Quantum computers can do maybe.

I am unconvinced that the points that you bring up are salient. Like, why do the things that you mention preclude consciousness? You might be right but I don't see why.

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