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Debating Whether AI is Conscious Is A Distraction from Real Problems
grantcastillou@gmail.com10

It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, w... (read more)

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Is it desirable for the first AGI to be conscious?
Answer by grantcastillou@gmail.com30

It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, w... (read more)

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1Charbel-Raphaël
The difference between primary consciousness and higher order consciousness is not clear to me. Is it the same thing as access consciousness and meta cognition?
1Charbel-Raphaël
"and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with primary consciousness will probably have to come first" The language models like GPT3 appear to be unstoppable,  and are much more versatile than the models of other modalities. So maybe a machine with higher order consciousness will come first?
grantcastillou@gmail.com10

It's becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman's Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, w... (read more)

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1TAG
If consciousness consists entirely of the performance of functions , then the trial and error could work. But the problem of understanding is designated the Easy Problem for exactly that reason -- the Hard Problem isn't susceptible to trial and error.