bouilhet
39
12
bouilhet has not written any posts yet.
bouilhet has not written any posts yet.
Why do I reject "intentionality if and only if subjective experience"? For one thing, there are simple states of consciousness - moods, for example - that have no intentionality, so subjectivity fails to imply intentionality. Nor can I see any reason that the implication holds in the direction from intentionality to subjectivity.
I think this is a bit confused. It isn't that simple states of consciousness, qualia, etc. imply intentionality, rather that they are prerequisites for intentionality. X if and only if Y just means there can be no X without Y. I'm not familiar enough with Searle to comment on his endorsement of the idea, but it makes sense to me at least that in order to have intention (in the sense of will) an agent would have first to be able to perceive (subjectively, of course) the surroundings/other agents on which it intends to act. You say intentionality is "easy". Okay. But what does it mean to talk of intentionality, without a subject to have the intention?
The Lector/AI analogy occurred to me as well. The problem, in strategic-- and perhaps also existential-- terms, is that Starling/Gatekeeper is convinced that Lector/AI is the only one holding the answer to some problem that Starling/Gatekeeper is equally convinced must be solved. Lector/AI, that is, has managed to make himself (or already is) indispensable to Starling/Gatekeeper.
On a side note, these experiments also reminded me of the short-lived game show The Moment of Truth. I watched a few episodes back when it first aired and was mildly horrified. Contestants were frequently willing to accept relatively paltry rewards in exchange for the ruination of what appeared at least to be... (read more)
Your response avoids the basic logic here. A human emulation would count as an AI, therefore human behavior is one possible AI behavior. There is nothing controversial in the statement; the conclusion is drawn from the premise. If you don't think a human emulation would count as AI, or isn't possible, or something else, fine, but... why wouldn't a human emulation count as an AI? How, for example, can we even think about advanced intelligence, much less attempt to model it, without considering human intelligence?
... (read more)...humans respond to orders and requests in the way that we do because we tend to care what the person giving the request actually
I think the point is that if you accept this definition of intelligence, i.e. that it requires the ability to form deep and reliable abstractions about the world, then it doesn't make sense to talk about any intelligence (let alone a super one) being unable to differentiate between smiley-faces and happy people. It isn't a matter, at least in this instance, of whether it cares to make that differentiation or not. If it is intelligent, it will make the distinction. It may have values that would be unrecognizable or abhorrent to humans, and I suppose that (as Shane_Legg noted) it can't be ruled out that such values might lead it to tile the universe with smiley-faces, but such an outcome would have to be the result of something other than a mistake. In other words, if it really is "that stupid," it fails in a number of other ways long before it has a chance to make this particular error.
Occam's razor is, of course, not an arbitrary rule nor one justified by its practical success. It simply says that unnecessary elements in a symbolism mean nothing.
Signs which serve one purpose are logically equivalent, signs which serve no purpose are logically meaningless.
The conscientious. - It is more comfortable to follow one's conscience than one's reason: for it offers an excuse and alleviation if what we undertake miscarries--which is why there are always so many conscientious people and so few reasonable ones.
-- Nietzsche
Thanks for clarifying. The wording seems odd to me, but I get it now.
How is this so? Surely, as a general proposition, ignorance and intention are much more loosely correlated than the quote suggests. What if the statement were altered slightly: "If (after great effort and/or reflection and/or prayer) you (still) don't know..." Does it still make sense to speak of intention? Or if the point is that the failure to solve a simple problem indicates a will to fail, well then the author has more faith in human will than I do--and IMO greatly underestimates the possible ways of not-knowing.
Geulincx, from his own annotations to his Ethics (1665):
... (read more)...our actions are as it were a mirror of Reason and God's law. If they reflect Reason, and contain in themselves what Reason dictates, then they are virtuous and praiseworthy; but if they distort Reason's reflection in themselves, then they are vicious and blameworthy. This has no effect on Reason, or God's law, which are no more beautiful or more ugly for it. Likewise, a thing represented in a mirror remains the same whether the mirror is true and faithfully represents it, or whether it is false and twists and distorts the likeness of the thing. The mirror does not
Thanks for the reply, Robb. I've read your post and a good deal of the discussion surrounding it.
I think I understand the general concern, that an AI that either doesn't understand or care about our values could pose a grave threat to humanity. This is true on its face, in the broad sense that any significant technological advance carries with it unforeseen (and therefore potentially negative) consequences. If, however, the intelligence explosion thesis is correct, then we may be too late anyway. I'll elaborate on that in a moment.
First, though, I'm not sure I see how an AI "too dumb to understand human values" could program a superior... (read 1093 more words →)