It's hard to see that books argument from the Wikipedia entry, but I don't see it arguing that intelligence needs to have senses, flesh, nerves, pain and pleasure.

It's just saying computer algorithms are not what humans use for consciousness. Which seems a reasonable conclusion. It doesn't imply computers can't gain consciousness, or that they need flesh and senses to do so.

We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what it calls creativity.

But what we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data (the situation hasn’t changed much since it was discussed here five years ago). When it writes an answer to a question, it literally just guesses which letter and word will come next in a sequence – based on the data it’s been trained on.

This means AI has no understanding. No consciousness. No knowledge in any real, human sense. Just pure probability-driven, engineered brilliance — nothing more, and nothing less.

So why is a real “thinking” AI likely impossible? Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, no flesh, no nerves, no pain, no pleasure. It doesn’t hunger, desire or fear. And because there is no cognition — not a shred — there’s a fundamental gap between the data it consumes (data born out of human feelings and experience) and what it can do with them.

Philosopher David Chalmers calls the mysterious mechanism underlying the relationship between our physical body and consciousness the “hard problem of consciousness”. Eminent scientists have recently hypothesised that consciousness actually emerges from the integration of internal, mental states with sensory representations (such as changes in heart rate, sweating and much more).

Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”, there is a profound and probably irreconcilable disconnect between general AI, the machine, and consciousness, a human phenomenon.

archive.ph

(archive.ph)

Is it tech bro of me to not assume immediately that humans are so much more special than simply organic thinking machines?

Yep, that's a bingo!

Humans are absolutely more special than organic thinking machines. I'll go a step further and say all living creatures are more special than that.

There's a much more interesting discussion to be had than "humans are basically chatbot" but it's this line of thinking that I find irritating.

If humans are simply thought processes or our productive output then once you have a machine capable of thinking similarly (btw chatbots aren't that and likely never will be) then you can feel free to dispose of humanity. It's a nice precursor to damning humanity to die so that you can have your robot army take over the world.

It's hard to see that books argument from the Wikipedia entry, but I don't see it arguing that intelligence needs to have senses, flesh, nerves, pain and pleasure.

It's just saying computer algorithms are not what humans use for consciousness. Which seems a reasonable conclusion. It doesn't imply computers can't gain consciousness, or that they need flesh and senses to do so.

We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what it calls creativity.

But what we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data (the situation hasn’t changed much since it was discussed here five years ago). When it writes an answer to a question, it literally just guesses which letter and word will come next in a sequence – based on the data it’s been trained on.

This means AI has no understanding. No consciousness. No knowledge in any real, human sense. Just pure probability-driven, engineered brilliance — nothing more, and nothing less.

So why is a real “thinking” AI likely impossible? Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, no flesh, no nerves, no pain, no pleasure. It doesn’t hunger, desire or fear. And because there is no cognition — not a shred — there’s a fundamental gap between the data it consumes (data born out of human feelings and experience) and what it can do with them.

Philosopher David Chalmers calls the mysterious mechanism underlying the relationship between our physical body and consciousness the “hard problem of consciousness”. Eminent scientists have recently hypothesised that consciousness actually emerges from the integration of internal, mental states with sensory representations (such as changes in heart rate, sweating and much more).

Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”, there is a profound and probably irreconcilable disconnect between general AI, the machine, and consciousness, a human phenomenon.

archive.ph

(archive.ph)

My language doesn't really have hyphenated words or different dashes. It's mostly punctuation within a sentence. As such there are almost no cases where one encounters a dash without spaces.

I think what he is implying is that current computer design will never be able to gain consciousness. Maybe a fundamentally different type of computer can, but is anything like that even on the horizon?

So you trust your slm more than your fellow humans?

Anyone pretending AI has intelligence is a fucking idiot.

Humans are absolutely more special than organic thinking machines. I'll go a step further and say all living creatures are more special than that.

Show your proof, then. I've already said what I need to say about this topic.

If humans are simply thought processes or our productive output then once you have a machine capable of thinking similarly (btw chatbots aren't that and likely never will be) then you can feel free to dispose of humanity.

We have no idea how humans think, yet you're so confident that LLMs don't and never will be similar? Are you the Techbro now, because you're speaking so confidently on something that I don't think can be proven at this moment. I typically associate that with Techbros trying to sell their products. Also, why are you talking about disposing humanity? Your insecurity level is really concerning.

Understanding how the human brain works is a wonderful thing that will let us unlock better treatment for mental health issues. Being able to understand them fully means we should also be able to replicate them to a certain extent. None of this involves disposing humans.

It's a nice precursor to damning humanity to die so that you can have your robot army take over the world.

This is just more of you projecting your insecurity onto me and accusing me of doing things you fear. All I've said was that humans thoughts are also probabilistic based on the little we know of them. The fact that your mind wander so far off into thoughts about me justifying a robot army takeover of the world is just you letting your fear run wild into the realm of conspiracy theory. Take a deep breathe and maybe take your own advice and go touch some grass.

You could say they're AS (Actual Stupidity)

My thing is that I don’t think most humans are much more than this. We too regurgitate what we have absorbed in the past. Our brains are not hard logic engines but “best guess” boxes and they base those guesses on past experience and probability of success. We make choices before we are aware of them and then apply rationalizations after the fact to back them up - is that true “reasoning?”

It’s similar to the debate about self driving cars. Are they perfectly safe? No, but have you seen human drivers???

Human brains are much more complex than a mirroring script xD The amount of neurons in your brain, AI and supercomputers only have a fraction of that. But you're right, for you its not much different than AI probably

My thing is that I don’t think most humans are much more than this. We too regurgitate what we have absorbed in the past. Our brains are not hard logic engines but “best guess” boxes and they base those guesses on past experience and probability of success. We make choices before we are aware of them and then apply rationalizations after the fact to back them up - is that true “reasoning?”

It’s similar to the debate about self driving cars. Are they perfectly safe? No, but have you seen human drivers???

The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, while ChatGPT, a large language model, has 175 billion parameters (often referred to as "artificial neurons" in the context of neural networks). While ChatGPT has more "neurons" in this sense, it's important to note that these are not the same as biological neurons, and the comparison is not straightforward.

86 billion neurons in the human brain isn't that much compared to some of the larger 1.7 trillion neuron neural networks though.

The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, while ChatGPT, a large language model, has 175 billion parameters (often referred to as "artificial neurons" in the context of neural networks). While ChatGPT has more "neurons" in this sense, it's important to note that these are not the same as biological neurons, and the comparison is not straightforward.

86 billion neurons in the human brain isn't that much compared to some of the larger 1.7 trillion neuron neural networks though.

Keep thinking the human brain is as stupid as AI hahaaha

Anyone pretending AI has intelligence is a fucking idiot.

I know it doesn't mean it's not dangerous, but this article made me feel better.

My thing is that I don’t think most humans are much more than this. We too regurgitate what we have absorbed in the past. Our brains are not hard logic engines but “best guess” boxes and they base those guesses on past experience and probability of success. We make choices before we are aware of them and then apply rationalizations after the fact to back them up - is that true “reasoning?”

It’s similar to the debate about self driving cars. Are they perfectly safe? No, but have you seen human drivers???