Knowing the structure of your model and providing it training data is a far cry from understanding how it reaches it's conclusion.

> (there can be millions or more)

You just described how incredibly complicated a system can be, yet still attempt to argue my point about programmers not fully understanding the logic behind them.

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> for each simulated neuron

It's fascinating that you would analogize the way it functions as imitating a neuron, then only later state that everything it can do, could be achieved by a calculator.

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I don't think you and I will ever agree on this topic. You seem impossibly married to the idea that every single computer is analogous to a calculator. I view that argument as both ignorant and reductive. All attempts I've made haven't produced new arguments from you, but are instead met with heels in sand.

Still appreciate you taking the time to respond, I just don't see this as being a productive use of either of our time.

>There isn’t any possibility of true consciousness from a computer.

Imagine admitting we don't' know what consciousness is and yet still being absolutely certain that you can distinguish when something is or is not conscious. As if applying the qualifier "true" changes anything about that. You want to know what drivel looks like, there you go...

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>Actually assigning rights to a computer itself shows a poor understanding of what a computer is…

Really depends on what you definition of computer is here. If you are assuming a calculator, phone or desktop, then sure, I would grant you that. But to assume you have any idea how the "black box" works within machine learning algorithms demonstrates your gross misunderstanding of the topic at hand.

The actual people who build these "machines" do not fully understand the logic behind much of the decision making being made. That's the entire reason we utilize machine learning.

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It's crazy just how little humility people show in regards to this subject. My entire argument is that we don't know enough and need to better understand this and people somehow manage to have the hubris to think this problem is already solved.

I think you are misunderstanding the arguments making or I've failed to adequately to articulate them if this is your response.

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>or have the ability to feel (don’t answer to this with the typical argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy).

We are literally discussing how we lack the understanding to determine whether or not something has consciousness, can feel or have free thought and your rebuttal is "they can't feel". This feels exactly like the sort of thing that probably happens every time we have marginalized any entity. Imagine trying to have a discussion with someone about whether or not a slave is human or sub-human and they think it's a valid response to simply say "well they are not human so...". That's literally what the debate is about!

What is this called? "Begging the question" I believe. We argue whether or not they have free will or can feel and you try to provide the evidence that "they just don't okay!"

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>Faulty analogy fallacy. Robots aren’t a race, nor a discriminated sex. They aren’t a subgroup of humans either. Not even a subgroup of animals.

There is where I think you are missing the point of the argument entirely. I'm fully aware of the facts you just stated, but it does nothing to rebut my claim and if anything, I think bolsters my argument even more.

To state more clearly what I was arguing

There was a point in our history where we viewed, actual, literal humans as a "sub race" and treated them as though they were property. You hear that now and think "thats insane, of course they should be treated the same as people!"

Then we did that to women (and still continue to do so in many places). They are viewed as less than their male counter parts, when in fact they should be given just as many rights.

Doctors used to operate on babies without providing a means to help deal with pain, because they assumed children were incapable of processing pain like adults. Despite them literally being humans and having brains, they assumed you could physically cause harm and suffering and it was no big deal.

So my point: Humans have notoriously and consistently, attempted to classify things with consciousness, that do feel, in a way that allows other humans to disregard that fact and treat them more poorly than we would treat those that we do acknowledge have consciousness. The mere fact that we have done this with our own species, should make us more acutely aware of our bias towards rejecting equal rights to entities that are deserving of them.

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>You are trying to give rights and moral consideration to a calculator.

This is absolutely fallacious and you are misconstruing my argument. I specifically mention traditional programs that execute functions as being separate from this view and yet you internally made this claim. Here is my bit (the calculator you claim I'm trying to give rights to):

>Most people hear "programming" and think of it in terms of a very traditional sense. A programmer goes in and writes every line of programming, that a program looks at and executers.

While this is still the case for many (probably most) forms of programming, it is not the case for machine learning.

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>And if I see a calculator and a kitten about to be crashed by a car I’d save the kitten.

And as you should. Giving rights doesn't mean the rights necessarily need to be equal. If I saw a child or a dog about to get run over, I would 100% save the child. Does that mean the dog is not entitled to rights, simply because those rights are not equal to that of a human child? Absolutely not.

What if I saw a human adult or a child tied up on a train tracks and could only save one? Of course I'm saving the child, but obviously the human adult should still have the necessary rights afforded to it.

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No offense, but with your use of fallacies, I assume you know something about debates, however the content of your response felt more like an attempt at a Gish Gallop than a serious reply.

>AI/robots are programmed to do whatever you tell them to do.

I dislike this statement, for a number of reasons.

First the obvious strawman argument. There was a time when people believed that certain races were "sub-human" and existed only to do whatever you tell them to do.

Second, many cultures believed (and some still do) that females should, at least to a lesser extent, be subservient to males, and the impact of that form of abuse was largely ignored, due to society viewing females as serving their intended function.

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>Unless you give it some kind of human understanding of emotions and stuff....

This is the entire crux of the debate. Most people hear "programming" and think of it in terms of a very traditional sense. A programmer goes in and writes every line of programming, that a program looks at and executers.

While this is still the case for many (probably most) forms of programming, it is not the case for machine learning.

Essentially, some problems are too complex for us to tell a computer exactly what to do. So rather than give it a bunch of rules, we more or less give it a goal or a way to score how close it got to achieving the desired result.

Then we run the program and check its score, but instead of running it 1 time, we run it millions of times, with very tiny differences between each instance. Then we select a percentage of "winners" to "iterate" on their small change and have all of these "children" compete against each other. Then we do this millions of times. Eventually, we hope to get an end product that does what we want it to do, without a lot of negatives, BUT the "programming" is a black box. We really have no idea how it ended up doing the things it ended up doing.

Sure we could assign it rules, like "don't tell users 'I am conscious'" but that is no different than telling a slave "you can't tell people you have the same rights as them." Creating a rule to prevent it from acknowledging something, doesn't actually change anything.

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>In my opinion, this shouldn't even be a debate.

Strongly disagree here. First, do I think AI is currently conscious? Probably not. Am I sure? Absolutely not.

The problem is that we don't really have a good way of defining consciousness or sentience. It's only recently that we've given equal rights to people of different races and gender. We have yet to assign really a really significant "bill of rights" to animals who demonstrate extreme levels of intelligence, more so than some of our young children who do have rights.

So I guess my question is this: Is it ethical to risk creating a "thing" that could become conscious, without having a way to determine if that "thing" is conscious, then put that "thing" through what could be considered torture or slavery by those whom we already define as having "consciousness".

I think the answer to this question should be no, it is not ethical to do that. I think the answer isn't to try and prevent people from not making AI though, I think we need to better define consciousness, in a non-anthropocentric way. Then we need to come up with a way to test whether or not something should be considered conscious, then assign it rights befitting a conscious being.

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tldr: Most programs are obviously not conscious, but of these chat ai bots, we lack the proper definition or test to confirm whether or not they are. In my view, it's unethical to continue doing this and therefore we have a moral obligation to better define consciousness, so that we can determine when/if it has arisen.

Absolutely!

In fact we already know this to be true. Our satellites experience time at a different rate than we do on earth and for that reason we must account for it when making calculations.

Your head and get agree differently too just due to their proximity to the earth.

Generally these things are so miniscule we will never be able to perceive them.

Oh my goodness! hahahaha. I hate you right now, thats hilarious lol

such an abysmal movie and sequel. Which sucks because I love the actors and I love all things magic.

I just fucking hate how they seem to have real magic, rather than being very clever magicians. At least with "The Prestige" (can't believe I'm comparing these two) they give a really satisfying explanation for how one version of the trick is done, then present the audience with an even more interesting question on whether or not it should be done.

This movie wants the audience to think they are magicians doing tricks when in reality none of that shit is possible and only real magic would explain it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid all around.

>Wouldn’t there be a measurable current of sorts in our path of movement?

"Current" feels like the wrong word here. In the sense of a river, "current" feels like the drag you would experience from molecules of water moving past you. You aren't gravitationally bound or dragged by the water, it's simply the inertia of heavy water molecules pushing against things as it moves downhill.

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>Or is there a way to counter the trajectory of our galaxy traveling through the universe/ solar system traveling through galaxy ~roughly 490,000 mph/ earth traveling around sun ~roughly 67,000….

Absolutely. How do you stop a car from driving down the road? You apply a force that counteracts the force causing it to move forward (you apply the brakes). In space you do this by ejecting mass in an opposing direction. If you've ever seen Wall-E and remember that little robot buddy using a fire extinguisher to move and spin (space dancing scene) then you know what I'm talking about.

The fire extinguisher has mass and that mass is being ejected, which causes the body to move in an opposing direction. So if we wanted to slow earth down, we would just keep pushing things off of Earth, away from it's current trajectory. Unfortunately as we slow down, our orbit would also begin to decay, causing us to get closer to the sun.

So lets try to slow sun down, we just need to uhh, eject mass from the sun, thats all. Yeah that seems a bit trickier.

So technically possible, but not really within our current technological capabilities.

Great question, but no. The effect of our movement is absolutely not able to be perceived, even over a lifetime. That is how minuscule it is.

BUT theoretically speaking, if we could get someone moving fast enough or close enough to a massive object for enough time, they would absolutely outlive their peers.

Having said that, moving more is great for your overall health and well-being, even if it's just a daily walk around the park.

Yeah its the GREATEST pbs series on youtube. You should absolutely go check it out!

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Seriously though let me give an ELI5 response. Space and time are so interconnected that we refer to them as Spacetime. What we've actually observed and tested is that the more you move through one, the less you move through another.

Let's imagine an extremely simplified "spacial dimension" where you can only move in one direction. Let's also imagine time as a spatial dimension as well, for simplicities sake.

Imagine that whenever you move "North" you are moving 100% through space and 0% through time. Now imagine you turn 90 degrees to the right and go East, you are moving 100% through time and 0% through space.

Whenever you want to move, you have to move some combination between "Space" and "Time". The faster you move (through space) the less you move through time. The closer you are to a heavy object the less you move through time as well (this is for a MUCH more complicated reason, but again related to "spacetime"), but whenever a massive object warps space, it also warps time.

We know this to be true, because our satellites orbiting the Earth must be INCREDIBLY accurate and precise. So much so that our programming has to account for the time dilation that occurs (us on Earth experiencing time differently than the Satellites in space do).

Essentially the two things are so connected, that we believe they are a single thing.

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Its a pretty dense topic but here are videos on spacetime, from spacetime!

How Does Gravity Warp the Flow of Time?

Does Time Cause Gravity?

When Time Breaks Down

Not to be argumentative here, but what are babies, if not unwilling participants in our society?

I mean we choose to have kids, they do not choose to be born, they just are, fully against their will.

Generally, society creates pressure that forces them into school and work, abiding by rules, customs, and laws, for virtually their entire lives. In fact, failure to do so could mean incarceration or death.

And that's just among many of the developed nations, where most of would respond with a resounding "yes" for whether or not we would want to have been born.

Suppose you were a child who was born during the holocaust, who lived and died in a concentration camp. Would you still have wanted to be born? What about a baby born with cancer or a child into poverty, who lives hungry and cold and dies no different?

Babies are absolutely unwilling participants in their creation and are more ore less stuck into whatever situation, place, economic class and time period they are born into.

yeah but you couldn't stack proximity mines off each other, like you could with remote mines, starting from the wall, and leading to the center of the room, so they floated in midair and were easy to miss.

Stop suggesting those gross things step-brother. Ewwww... I would never.

Seriously though, can you blame porn? Incest is one of those things that, so easy to include in videos. You just say "step-[relationship]" at any point in the video and BOOM you've now attracted another entire audience.

It's kind of like family shows lately that insert a token gay scene or character. It takes all but 0.5 seconds for them to deliver the dialogue that says "ah-hah! they ARE gay", it doesn't affect the plot in any meaningful way and now disney, pixar exec's get to be like "yeah we've always been down with the rainbow, we are inclusive."

You don't find him... he finds you.

>Gut bacteria are crawling all over the anal/genital region all the time, as well.

Serious question... for those of us who frequently go down on our partner, do we have a healthier gut biome (or at least one that more closely resembles our partners)?

You know asking for a friend of course...