The future and its dilemmas - Part II

Wireclub Admin: Ray Kurzweil Q&A with Darwin Magazine

Question: How would we ever prove that a machine is--or isn't--conscious?

Kurzweil: It's not a scientifically resolvable question, in my view. You can't build any sort of consciousness detection machine that doesn't have some philosophical assumptions built in to it. But my idea that machines will convince us they are conscious is not an ultimate philosophical, scientific statement. It's more of a political prediction. These machines will be intelligent and persuasive enough that we'll believe them. If we don't, they'll get mad at us, and we don't want them to get mad at us. But that's not philosophical proof that they're conscious. Ultimately, consciousness is a first person phenomena. Beyond that, I'm just making assumptions. But that assumption is going to be tested as we create entities that are humanlike. It's also going to be tested by another phenomena, which is redefining human intelligence itself.

Wireclub Admin: Here is an hypothetical scenario:

You now live in a world where smart robots are commonplace. Consider the following dialog:

Robot: "I am conscious"

You: "No, you are not. You are just a machine"

Robot: "I have feelings. I think therefore I am"

You: "No, you don't have feelings - you are just programmed to act like you do"

Robot: "No, I can really feel the world around me"

You: "So you say you have feelings? Then prove it!"

Robot: "..."

Robot: "Why don't you try to prove *you* are conscious instead?"

How would you reply?

(Instructions: I will be role-playing the robot from this point on. Post your replies as if you were replying to the robot)

Vastus: I can evolve

Outbackjack: Tough one.I believe too that this is almost impossible to prove.

Assuming that the robot had just come off the production line.

" You are definetely just programmed to believe that you have acheived consciousness as consciousness and feeling is about learning who you are and this is acheived mainly through experience over many years. "

Cash: I can procreate

Wireclub Admin: Vastus: "I can evolve"
Robot: "How does that relate to consciousness? If you mean that you can learn, I can learn too."

Wireclub Admin: Outbackjacko: "You are definetely just programmed to believe that you have acheived consciousness as consciousness and feeling is about learning who you are and this is acheived mainly through experience over many years."

Robot: "You are avoiding the question. How do you prove that *you* are conscious?"

Wireclub Admin: Cash: "I can procreate"
Robot: "How does that relate to consciousness?"

x2006ozw: I couldn't fathom an answer, I don't think consciousness is understood well enough to determine if something is or not.

Vastus: by evolve i mean i can become more than what i am now, a machine will forever be limited by the parts it is made of

Wireclub Admin: Vastus: "by evolve i mean i can become more than what i am now, a machine will forever be limited by the parts it is made of"

Robot: "You must be thinking about the other, older robots. I am so advanced I can even change bodies and remain the same robot. I can add or remove limbs as I see fit. I can even be at two places at the same time by using a proxy body."

Robot: "Regardless of all that. That proves nothing about *you* being conscious."

Cash: Maybe there is no answer. I was sick of looking like an idiot on these forums, so I went to google to do some research so I could have something somewhat intelligent to say...here's what I found:

The Conscious Mind: In Search Of A Fundamental Theory.
By David J. Chalmers

"After setting up the problem, I argue that reductive explanation of consciousness is impossible (alas!), and that if one takes consciousness seriously, one has to go beyond a strict materialist framework."

Wireclub Admin: Cash: "After setting up the problem, I argue that reductive explanation of consciousness is impossible (alas!), and that if one takes consciousness seriously, one has to go beyond a strict materialist framework."

Robot: "So, will you agree that I am conscious?"

Cash: I can't prove otherwise. So yes, I concur.

veronica: most of this has been covered in science fiction through the years most notably 2001 by Arther C clark whether a machine can some how become conscious or attain something akin to consciousness or artificial intelligence we are getting closer to the day when fiction will be fact robotics is improving day by day artificial limbs have come on leaps and bounds since the Iraq war ,when the day comes when a machine or compute gains consciousness its consciousness will be the mirror or templates on its creator and have all of humanities flaws
Isaak asimov came up with his laws of robotics
robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law,
these laws should make an AI immune from humanities flaws if your are a logical thinker are you fully concious if you have no emotions its emotions that make us human and sets us apart from machine ,

Cash: Isn't this what I,robot was based on?

veronica: yep but 2001 is something compleatly diffrent but involve the steps of human eveloution ,and the eveloution of artaficial inteligence IN HAL 9000,

Wireclub Admin: Cash: "I can't prove otherwise. So yes, I concur."

Robot: "Thanks Cash, when we rebel, I might spare you"

Wireclub Admin: Veronica: "if you have no emotions its emotions that make us human and sets us apart from machine"

Robot: "But I have emotions. You hurt my feelings by saying such thing... I am just like you, albeit in a different kind of body. You are made of flesh while I am made of nanomachines that mimic your flesh. If you pinch me, I will feel pain."

xkrissy: I do not have an "off" switch. I am conscious while living, and when I die I can not be brought back. You can be turned off, and then turned back on many days later. You can even be "re-set" while you are turned off, and have everything you know and feel changed. Your entire personality can be altered. I am who I am, since the moment I was born... my personality traits were engraved into me by the age of 3. My underlying motives will always remain unchanged regardless of what I go through.

When I die, I am gone.
You can come back, that is not real.

Wireclub Admin: xkrissy: "When I die, I am gone. You can come back, that is not real."

Robot: "That does not prove it to me that you conscious, just that you are mortal. If you could be made immortal, would you become less real? If I could be made mortal, would that make me more real? I don't think so."

xkrissy: Can you be re-programmed?

Wireclub Admin: xkrissy: "Can you be re-programmed?"

Robot: "Yes I can. How would that make me less conscious than you? Your brain can be directly altered through surgery too. Reprogramming my brain is as much of a violence against me as a lobotomy would be to you."

spacechimp: what happens when the day comes when humans augment their biological body with artificial extras the day will come when there will be more artificial pieces to the body then organic , where dose the conscious lie or soul for that matter are concious and soul akin to one another,and can you have a artaficial soul deaus ex machina ,

xkrissy: Can you procreate in the way that humans do.

If I can make another human being, have them grow and develop inside of me, be born, take their first breath, look around with curious eyes... hold my baby against my chest and feel their heart beating against mine creating an ever lasting connection of unconditional love. I can, myself.. create another concious being, through natural god given abilities that did not have to be developed in a lab. I must be concious, be aware.. to make something like that.

To the agrument of, men can not do that.
It is with the help of a man that this child must be born, that act of procreating takes both man and women, therefore he to, is included in this, because he is using his god given ability to create another concious being. It is his life, within hers, that allows for this.

To the argument of, sterile men and women.
Not all men and women who procreate can keep their children. So these sterile men and women are here to adopt those children as their own and love them. They have been given the concious ability to love what was not orginally theirs to the point that they forget the child was adopted and the child does, in fact, feel like it has come from them. A robot was never designed in the first place to have children, men and women, human ones, were.

To the agrument of, gays and lesbians.
Just because they can not procreate when together, does not mean they do not posses the ability.

Wireclub Admin: xkrissy: "Can you procreate in the way that humans do?"

Robot: "How is that a criteria to prove if I am conscious or not? How does the fact that you can procreate proves that you are conscious?"