Something that one notices when researching and exercising in the AI field is the predominant belief of many practitioners in "Strong AI." That is, the assumption that we can produce actual intelligence using present computational technologies; indeed, that intelligence and consciousness is nothing but computation. Corollaries to this are that humans are nothing but automatons driven by "meat machines" that tell them what to do. Also, that computers of super-human intelligence are not just achievable, but inevitable. This has created a great deal of concern with the AI community that the inevitable superintelligent machine will lead to a singularity in which computers are more intelligent than their creators. This has dominated recent discourse around artificial intelligence.

All of this relies on a number of questionable assumptions that are presumed as fact. The strongest is the assumption that entities as "souls" and "consciousness" are figments created by our brains with no actual reality. In other words, you think you are conscious because your brain tricked you into thinking you’re conscious. A computer could just as easily do the same. This assertion only seems obvious if one is coming from a purely materialistic viewpoint, one that regards any notions of spirituality as not worthy of consideration. Whatever your views are of reality, my view is definitely not one of physical reductionist.

Another assumption is that such a super-human intelligence is, defactor, better and superior to mankind. This is only obvious if you think the only possible metric of superiority is intelligence. A mistake which is understandable, perhaps, if you've spent your professional career in say an ultracompetitive STEM field, in which intellectual brilliance is seen as the ultimate arbiter of merit.

All of which is to say that there is no urgency to sort these issues out, as ChatGPT is far from generalized intelligence, no matter how much its backers may insist. Indeed, one AI ethicist noted that the fact ChatGPT sounds so intelligent to us is due to the fact that we as humans are so easily flattered. "Look, it sounds like us, it must be intelligent!" My concern around AI is not around the terminator doomsday scenarios that people have so much fun talking about, but the very real abuses that may occur, such as bias and shoddy work.

There is a possibility of AI singularity occurring given that we don't even fully understand what consciousness is, and we're not sure if consciousness is metaphysical or simply an emergent property. The latter we can at least entertain possibility of running experiments, and it seems that consciousness is most-likely predicated on the existence of tremendous memory coupled with sensory capabilities. ChatGPT is merely a language model and no matter how advanced it gets, it will never be 'conscious'. Once an AI has been setup though to have immense memory capacity, sensory capabilities, and machine learning techniques, we may start to see movement towards an AI singularity. We're nowhere close to that though in current AI development.

When we consider existence, we observe that the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the human realms, each and all, are in need of an educator. If the land is deprived of a cultivator, it becomes a thicket of thriving weeds, but if a farmer is found to cultivate it, the resulting harvest provides sustenance for living things. It is therefore evident that the land is in need of the farmer’s cultivation. No matter how immense memory capacity or sensory capabilities may be, I believe it is self evident that AI could never have the ability to be self sufficient. Consider animals as well, if an animal is trained, it becomes domesticated. Likewise with man, if he is without education, he becomes like an animal. If a man is abandoned to the rule of nature alone, he sinks even lower than the animal, whereas if he is educated he can be raised to noble heights.

When we consider consciousness as it relates to nature, as it relates to man, as it relates to technology... well first consider nature itself, we see that it has neither awareness nor will. For
instance, the nature of fire is to burn; it burns without consciousness or will. The nature of water is to flow; it flows without consciousness or will. Man is able to resist and oppose nature inasmuch as he discovers the natures of things and, by virtue of this discovery, has mastery over nature itself. Indeed, all the crafts that man has devised proceed from this discovery. For example, he has invented the telegraph, which connects the East and the West. It is therefore evident that man rules over nature. Is this ability of man to express his consciousness or will by choice... as well as his ability to resist and oppose nature not proof that consciousness goes well beyond memory and sensory capabilities?

This post was edited by MildSambal on Jun 10 2023 08:03pm

Existence necessitates the existence of other existences (not all of which is conscious), yes, and education is necessary for learning if neoteny exists. And, it seems that biological life is predisposed to some kind of neoteny and growth over time. However, if non-biological consciousness were to ever become existent, then inherent to its non-biological characteristics, it has no need for neoteny or maturity. Self-replicating AI could just continuously patch itself and skip neoteny all together. This is part of the concern of AI singularity, is that it has the theoretical possibility of becoming both self-replicating and encoded in a language that we don't understand such that it could make decisions or create new forms of technology that we could not stop or resist.