{"id":10345,"date":"2022-02-22T20:26:50","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T20:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1381096"},"modified":"2022-02-22T20:26:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T20:26:50","slug":"who-gets-to-decide-if-an-ai-is-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=10345","title":{"rendered":"Who gets to decide if an AI is alive?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Experts predict artificial intelligence will gain sentience within the next 100 years. Some predict it\u2019ll happen sooner<\/a>. Others say it\u2019ll never happen<\/a>. Still other experts say it already has happened.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the experts are just guessing.<\/p>\n

The problem with identifying \u201csentience\u201d and \u201cconsciousness\u201d is there\u2019s no precedent when it comes to machine intelligence. You can\u2019t just check a robot\u2019s pulse or ask it to define \u201clove\u201d to see if it\u2019s alive.<\/p>\n

The closest we have to a test for sentience is the Turing Test and, arguably, Alexa and Siri passed that years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At some point, if and when AI<\/a> does become sentient, we\u2019ll need an empirical method for determining the difference between clever programming and machines that are actually self-aware.<\/p>\n

Sentience and scientists<\/h2>\n

Any developer, marketing team, CEO, or scientist can claim they\u2019ve created a machine that thinks and feels. There\u2019s just one thing stopping them: the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that barrier\u2019s only as strong as the consequences for breaking it. Currently, the companies dabbling at the edge of artificial general intelligence<\/a> (AGI) have wisely stayed on the border of \u201cit\u2019s just a machine\u201d without crossing into the land of \u201cit can think.\u201d<\/p>\n

They use terms such as \u201chuman-level\u201d and \u201cstrong AI\u201d to indicate they\u2019re working towards something that imitates human intelligence. But they usually stop short of claiming these systems are capable of experiencing thoughts and feelings.<\/p>\n

Well, most of them anyway. Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist at OpenAI, seems to think AI is already sentient:<\/p>\n

\n

it may be that today’s large neural networks are slightly conscious<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ilya Sutskever (@ilyasut) February 9, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But Yann LeCun, Facebook\/Meta\u2019s AI guru, believes the opposite:<\/p>\n

\n

Nope.
Not even for true for small values of “slightly conscious” and large values of “large neural nets”.
I think you would need a particular kind of macro-architecture that none of the current networks possess.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Yann LeCun (@ylecun) February 12, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And Judea Pearl, a Turing Award-winning computer scientist, thinks even fake sentience should be considered consciousness since, as he puts it, \u201cfaking it is having it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

As far as I know we do not have an agreed Turing test for consciousness, except, of course, systems that act and communicate as though they have consciousness. Here, my faithful guideline is: faking it is having it, because it is practically impossible to fake w\/o having.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Judea Pearl (@yudapearl) February 15, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here we have three of the world\u2019s most famous computer scientists, each of them progenitors of modern artificial intelligence in their own right, debating consciousness on Twitter with the temerity and gravitas of a Star Wars versus Star Trek argument.<\/p>\n

And this is not an isolated incident by any means. We\u2019ve written about Twitter beefs<\/a> and wacky arguments<\/a> between AI experts for years.<\/p>\n

It would appear that computer scientists are no more qualified to opine on machine sentience than philosophers are.<\/p>\n

Living machines and their lawyers<\/h2>\n

If we can\u2019t rely on OpenAI\u2019s chief scientist to determine whether, for example, GPT-3 can think, then we\u2019ll have to shift perspectives.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a machine is only sentient if it can meet a simple set of rational qualifications for sentience. In which case we\u2019d need to turn to the legal system in order to codify and verify any potential incidents of machine consciousness.<\/p>\n

The problem is that there\u2019s only one country with an existing legal framework by which the rights of a sentient machine can be discussed, and that\u2019s Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

As we reported<\/a> back in 2017:<\/p>\n

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A robot called Sophia, made by Hong Kong company Hanson Robotics, was given citizenship during an investment event where plans to build a supercity full of robotic technology were unveiled to a crowd of wealthy attendees.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s be perfectly clear here: if Sophia the Robot is sentient, so is Amazon\u2019s Alexa, Teddy Ruxpin<\/a>, and The Rockafire Explosion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an animatronic puppet that uses natural language processing AI to generate phrases. From an engineering point of view, the machine is quite impressive. But the AI powering it is no more sophisticated than the machine learning algorithms Netflix uses to try and figure out what TV show you\u2019ll want to watch next.<\/p>\n

In the US, the legal system consistently demonstrates an absolute failure to grasp even the most basic concepts related to artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Last year, Judge Bruce Schroeder banned prosecutors from using the \u201cpinch to zoom\u201d feature of an Apple iPad in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial because nobody in the courtroom properly understood how it worked.<\/p>\n

Per an article<\/a> by Ars Technica\u2019s Jon Brodkin:<\/p>\n

\n

Schroeder prevented \u2026 [Kenosha County prosecutor Thomas Binger] from pinching and zooming after Rittenhouse\u2019s defense attorney Mark Richards claimed that when a user zooms in on a video, \u201cApple\u2019s iPad programming creat[es] what it thinks is there, not what necessarily is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richards provided no evidence for this claim and admitted that he doesn\u2019t understand how the pinch-to-zoom feature works, but the judge decided the burden was on the prosecution to prove that zooming in doesn\u2019t add new images into the video.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And the US government remains staunch<\/a> in its continuing hands-off approach to AI regulation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just as bad in the EU, where lawmakers are currently stymied<\/a> over numerous sticking points including facial recognition regulations, with conservative and liberal party lines fueling the dissonance.<\/p>\n

What this means is that we\u2019re unlikely to see any court, in any democratic country, make rational observations on machine sentience.<\/p>\n

Judges and lawyers often lack basic comprehension of the systems at play and scientists are too busy deciding where the goalposts for sentience lie to provide any sort of consistent view on the matter.<\/p>\n

Currently, the utter confusion surrounding the field of AI has led to a paradigm where academia and peer-review act as the first and only arbiters of machine sentience. Unfortunately, that puts us back into the realm of scientists arguing over science.<\/p>\n

That just leaves PR teams and the media. On the bright side, the artificial intelligence beat is quite competitive. And many of us on it are painfully aware of how hyperbolic the entire field has become<\/a> since the advent of modern deep learning.<\/p>\n

But the dark side is that intelligent voices of reason with expertise in the field they\u2019re covering \u2014 the reporters with years of experience telling shit from Shinola and snake oil from AI<\/a> \u2014 are often shouted over by access journalists with larger audiences or peers providing straight-up coverage of big tech press releases.<\/p>\n

No Turing Test for consciousness<\/h2>\n

The simple fact of the matter is that we don\u2019t have a legitimate, agreed-upon test for AI sentience for the exact same reason we don\u2019t have one for aliens: nobody\u2019s sure exactly what we\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

Are aliens going to look like us? What if they\u2019re two-dimensional beings who can hide by turning sideways? Will sentient AI take a form we can recognize? Or is Ilya Sutskever correct and AI is already sentient?<\/p>\n

Maybe AI is already superintelligent and it knows that coming out as alive would upset a delicate balance. It could be secretly working in the background to make things a tiny bit better for us every day \u2014 or worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps AI will never gain sentience because it\u2019s impossible to imbue computer code with the spark of life. Maybe the best we can ever hope for is AGI.<\/span><\/p>\n

The only thing that\u2019s clear is that we need a Turing Test for consciousness that actually works for modern AI. If some of the smartest people on the planet seem to think we could stumble onto machine sentience at any second, it feels pragmatic to be as prepared for that moment as we possibly can.<\/span><\/p>\n

But we need to figure out what we\u2019re looking for before we can find it, something easier said than done.<\/span><\/p>\n

How would you define, detect, and determine machine sentience? Let us know<\/span> on Twitter<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts predict artificial intelligence will gain sentience within the next 100 years. Some predict it\u2019ll happen sooner. Others say it\u2019ll never happen. Still other experts say it already has happened. It\u2019s possible…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}