Most people who frequent these pages are familiar with the Turing Test. Turing proposed that a judge would evaluate text responses from a machine and a human. If the judge could not tell which was human, the machine would have passed the test. The Turing Test measures machine intelligence based on a communication metric. In other words, if the AI can talk like a human, it is as intelligent as a human.
Some researchers, like our own Robert Marks, think the Turing Test is too easy. They say creativity, not mere communication, is the real measure of human intelligence, and they have advanced the “Lovelace Test” as a superior alternative. An AI would pass the Lovelace Test by doing something “surprising.” For example, the AI could be asked to write a story, and the AI would pass if the programmer could not explain how the AI come up with the story. The AI would, itself, be considered creative, as opposed to an extension of its creator’s creativity (as is the case with chess and Go playing computers).
If an AI were able to pass both the Turing Test and the Lovelace Test, would we then know it is conscious in the same way humans are conscious? No. The reason for this conclusion, which might be surprising for some, is simple. We can’t “know” that even other humans are conscious; far less can we know that an AI is conscious.
Whoa Barry. Get a grip. Are you suggesting that you do not know other humans are conscious? In a sense, Yes I am. By its very nature, consciousness, as evidenced by subjective self-awareness, can be known only by subjective experience. And I can have subjective experience only of my own self. I cannot be subjectively self-aware of any other self. It follows, that I can be certain only of my own consciousness.
Of course, by no means am I denying that other humans are conscious. I feel confident they are. I am merely saying that I can experience only my own consciousness. My own experience of consciousness is the primary evidence of the fact that I am conscious. I cannot have primary evidence that any other person is conscious. I can infer to a very high degree of confidence that other humans are conscious, but that inference is based on secondary evidence. To use a crude example, I regard my own empathy as an attribute of my consciousness. When my wife cries at the end of Old Yeller, I infer from this outward reaction that she also has empathy. And from this I infer further that her empathy is an attribute of her consciousness just as mine is, and therefore she in fact is conscious. But I cannot know that she is in the same way that I know that I am. Conceivably, my wife is an AI programmed to shed tears when a beloved pet dies. I am very confident that is not the case, but I cannot know it for certain.
These are not original ideas. There is a large literature based on the concept of the “philosophical zombie” based on the insight that we cannot experience another person’s consciousness; we can only infer it. If we can only infer (and not know) another human is consciousness, it follows that no matter how sophisticated an AI is, we can never know that it is conscious. If an AI becomes so powerful that we cannot distinguish it from a human, we might infer that it is conscious, but we will never be able to know it for certain.
Indeed, Barry. I agree with you.
BA, the issue pivots on what we mean by knowledge and by certainty. Both come in degrees, this is the issue of warrant. We are self evidently certain of our own consciousness, undeniably so. But we may be morally certain that others are similarly conscious, so that it would be irresponsible to treat them as mere empty zombie-bots. turning to machines, why would we even entertain that such would be more than sophisticated calculating machines, apart from an implicit notion that matter, suitably arranged, becomes conscious. The empirical, observational evidence for such is nil. where, if sufficiently clever programming and hardware were to compose a de novo story or the like, we may have a certain degree of artificial intelligence, but this is not to be equated to consciousness. Instead we have a problem that traces to the issue of presumed materialism, often lab coat clad. But evolutionary materialism is also self-referentially absurd in many ways so despite its social power the presumption is ill-founded. Consciousness is yet another sign that reality is more than the materialists suppose. KF
“We can’t “know” that even other humans are conscious; far less can we know that an AI is conscious.”
I agree that this is the case, up to a certain degree. What you leave out is other modalities of communication, namely telepathy. A very large body of research in parapsychology, and many (unusual) everyday experiences, attest to the reality of this paranormal phenomenon.
If telepathic communication were established between humans and an AI system, this would be confirmation by direct perception of the real existence of self-aware consciousness on the part of the AI system. Also, of course, the existence of telepathy with other living humans is confirmation of the true consciousness of these other humans. Naturally, materialists reject the reality of this mode of communication, along with all other aspects of the paranormal.
Despite Bob’s somewhat flippant remark, the argument from personal conscious experience, that Barry highlighted, is particularly devastating to Atheistic presuppositions. And, if atheists were ever honest in their reflections, should cause atheists to seriously reconsider their beliefs.
First off. in establishing this ‘argument from consciousness’ it is important to point out that the concept of “I”, i.e. personhood, simply does not exist in the atheist’s materialistic worldview,
Moreover, nobody, especially atheists, has the slightest clue how anything material can ever possibly become conscious and have a personal conscious experience:
And thus, as an atheist, herein lies the problem for you Bob. You tell me that you are a real person, and that your personal subjective opinions on atheism are valid for me to personally accept without question, but, (regardless of the fact that you have no free will under determinism in which to form opinions), exactly how am I to personally know, with complete absolute 100% certainty, that you are not just some type of zombie going through the motions of personhood? i.e. How do I know for certain that you really are having a personal subjective experience?,, Scientifically prove it to me!
You see Bob, I know for 100% fact that I really do exist, but there is no way for you ever to ‘scientifically’ prove to me that you really exist as a real person and that you are not just some type of ‘philosophical zombie’ going through the motions of being a real person!
Such as it is with the atheist’s refusal to ever accept any evidence for the personhood of God.
As Alvin Plantinga pointed out years ago in “God and Other Minds”,,, “the evidence for God is just as good as the evidence for other minds; and conversely, if there isn’t any evidence for God, then there is also no evidence that other minds exist,,,”
Thus Bob, we can have just as much confidence in the fact that the Mind of God really exists as we have confidence in our belief that the mind’s of other people really exist.
One final remark, it is certainly not the case that we do not have more than enough evidence to conclude that the Mind of God really does exist:,, For example, from quantum mechanics we have,,,
KF @ 2.
I do not disagree with anything you say. My point is that even if we were able to someday hundreds of years from now come up with a very very clever machine (I have in mind “Commander Data” of Star Trek Next Generation fame), we would still never know with certainty the machine is conscious.
I fully agree with Barry on this. We can’t be certain of the consciousness of other human beings, how are we going to do so for machines?
But a more interesting question is, if we do build a machine that has all appearances of being as conscious as we perceive other humans to be, would we grant it rights?
Very good post, and I also agree with Barry.
Our own experience of our own consciousness is a unique part of our life. Even though I also accept that other people have a similar sense of their own consciousness, I know that this is in theory unprovable.
But I act as if everyone has their own internal sense of consciousness, and I can’t imagine thinking and doing otherwise.
And I don’t see how Bob’s first post (“Indeed, Barry. I agree with you.”) was flippant.
And I don’t see how ba77’s post is relevant. Irrespective of whether someone is an atheistic materialist or not, we are assuming that everyone had a the experience of being conscious. I see a blue sky. You see a blue sky. We are conscious of that perception. I don’t see how this fact is changed by what metaphysics one believes in.
Here’s a question: is a gorilla conscious? We don’t know whether a gorilla, or any other animal is conscious, any more than we know that each other is conscious. But I assume (others may not) that the gorilla is conscious of the blue sky. But the gorilla has no metaphysics. He just sees the blue sky.
jdk:
Of course you wouldn’t. But it was the snide use of a quote-mine which is pretty much the definition of flippant. 😛
I disagree with the limited view of consciousness because it is too subjective. All tests are conducted to our satisfaction and may not even be valid.
I really suggest that city people get out in the wild and enjoy it. Witness the animals and what they do. Watch beavers drop a tree more accurately than you could as if it actually planned it all and carried it out. And forget this “instinct” crap. That’s just a word for “we don’t know but we know they ain’t conscious so it has to be something else. we’ll call it instinct.”
Animals are smarter than people want to give them credit for. Then it amazes us when we see them something that clearly requires planning (or extreme luck). Then the limbic system kicks in and we yell “instinct” as if that solves something.
To me that would be a sick designer trick-> all animals but humans operate on built-in operating systems only.
But that’s just me. And seriously get out, go hiking, camping, and observe. Or just move to a rural area and enjoy.
I love hiking: Rocky Mountain National Park is my favorite.
But I think we are using the word “conscious” differently. I am referring to the internal sense of perceiving the world as the foundation of our conscious experience. The beaver sees the tree. That is a preliminary step to deciding to cut the tree down and drag it to his dam. I also agree that the beaver is using intelligence (without the benefit of language) to adjust his behavior to his needs and situation.
As with all animals, more or less, instinctual behaviors are merged with some level of intelligence to live in the world. Many fascinating studies have been done on animals to differentiate between the two, and to find the limits of adaptability in different species.
But the foundation of living in the world is being conscious of the world, in terms of perception.
Umm, your “instinctual behaviors” are most likely the animals consciousness shining through.
True, no other animal could parse that word salad. I think that is a positive for them that they don’t have to.
as to:
“But the foundation of living in the world is being conscious of the world, in terms of perception.”
Welcome to Theism:
As I pointed out in another post in response to your mention of Chalmers, the nature of consciousness presents a hard problem for both materialism and all dualistic metaphysics, such as theism.
Over on the bias thread, I wrote,
I don’t think acknowledging the reality of consciousness (as I said there, I certainly know that my consciousness is real) defaults to supporting theism.
And, as I said in another post recently, the existence of consciousness is one of the reasons I am skeptical about materialism. However, the other half of the hard problem is, among other reasons, a major part of why I am skeptical about dualism (of which theism is just one option).
Therefore, I am quite agnostic about the nature of consciousness although I’m attracted somewhat to Buddhist notions, which are non-theistic.
Either Mind is primary and matter is derivative, or else matter is primary and mind is derivative.
If matter is primary and mind derivative, then catastrophic epistemological failure results.
Whereas, if Mind is primary and matter is derivative, then our sanity is preserved.
Unfortunately, many atheists are willing to cast their sanity to the side and embrace insanity rather than ever embrace God.
Regardless of their extremely poor choice, besides sanity, science itself is on the Theist’s side:
As far as the science is concerned, it is not even close. Theism is a slam dunk!
ba77 writes,
You’re a very dichotomous fellow, ba, but the above is not necessarily true. Mind and matter could be a yin/yang pair, as is held by Taoism. They are one of the many examples (but a primary one) of complementary duality: co-equal aspects of reality, residing dormant in the other when the other is active, but in no way existing independently of the other.
I don’t think you are reading for clarity,,,
That is why I used ‘epi-phenomena’ in my argument from quantum mechanics, i.e. I included in my argument, besides materialism, ALL the worldviews that hold consciousness to be, basically, co-terminus with material reality.
i.e. My quantum mechanical argument for God from consciousness applies to all worldviews that would seek to challenge Theism.,,, i.e. challenge the Mind of God preceding all of reality.
As I said, as far as the science is concerned, Theism is a slam dunk.
Moreover, you are the one claiming that “I don’t believe that any metaphysical system that people believe is “true”: they are creative inventions which we have built to explain things that we can’t truly know about.”
Thus why in blue blazes are you dissing both materialism and Theism and favoring some type of Eastern mysticism?
Are you finally settling on a worldview that you will actually try to defend? Or is all this just more pointless posturing on your part where you ignore science in favor of your own personal opinions?
My bet is on the later!
Moreover, rumor has it that you are a reincarnated troll,, ‘krebs’,,, Is this true?
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/fixing-the-unfixable-drake-equation/#comment-655986
“I can infer to a very high degree of confidence that other humans are conscious, but that inference is based on secondary evidence.”
I think this is where Barry jumped the shark.
His experience of his own consciousness is, he says, “primary” evidence.
But somehow his experience of other people is “secondary”.
No, I don’t think so.
ScuzzaMan said:
Direct personal experience is primary and empirical. Someone telling you that they also have direct personal experience is secondary and testimonial in nature.
ScuzzaMan @18 – I don’t see how Barry’s experiences of other people’s consciousness can be anything other than secondary. He can’t think other people*s thought for them, at beast he can hear them say what their thoughts are, but I think Barry would argue that that would be secondary evidence (FWIW, that’s what I would argue).
ba77 writes,
Hmmm, Mr. Cunningham, I definitely don’t believe in reincarnation! 🙂
1. Several people here know my real name, as I have stated it several times, although I have never posted here under that name. jdk are my initials. I have posted here under other names before I decided to no longer remain anonymous. FTR, I think I posted as hazel and aleta, and perhaps someone else. Over the years I’ve also posted at ISCID and ARN, but that was long ago. I’m not trying to hide anything about who I am.
2. I have no idea what your definition of troll is. Wikipedia says,
I don’t believe that description applies to me.
3. When I wrote, “Mind and matter could be a yin/yang pair, as is held by Taoism”, you replied
Although I like Eastern thought on some of these issues (I have written about that before), I only offer it as an example of why your statement, “Either Mind is primary and matter is derivative, or else matter is primary and mind is derivative”, is not the only logical choice.
As I have explained, we create metaphysical stories for useful human purposes, to help us make the most sense of the world, but they aren’t true ontologically. It is not inconsistent for me to believe what I do about our inability to know the Truth about metaphysics and to offer alternative ways of explaining something that you offer as a metaphysical fact, for the sake of showing that there are multiple ways of understanding what might be true.
4. You write, “As I said, as far as the science is concerned, Theism is a slam dunk.” And I don’t believe that is true: that is what we are discussing.
The bigger issue is if consciousness reduces to a configuration of matter, then the same configuration instantiated in different lumps of matter is the same consciousness. Yet, if my brain is destroyed and then reconstructed on the planet Xendra, I do not suddenly regain consciousness on Xendra. I just cease to exist. What we witnessed on Star Trek is Scotty constantly slaughtering his crew.
Bob and William
You do not need to have direct experience of another person’s consciousness (a metaphysical notion if there ever was one) to have direct experience of another person.
When a normal person says or writes “person” they’re not speaking of a man-shaped machine, but a conscious self-willed autonomous, thinking being, usually a human being. It is built into the very definition. Why?
Because our direct, personal, subjective experiences of other people leaves us in no actual doubt that they’re as conscious as we are.*
Can we prove it? Can we pry open their consciousness in a lab and measure it, filter it, sample it, quantify it, identify its constituent elements?
No.
(That is, after all, the entirety of the materialist’s point: we cannot do these things to consciousness so in order to impress us with their muscular intellectual consistency they pretend they don’t believe in consciousness, relegating even their own to an illusion, a fantasy, a mirage. To the best of our knowledge only conscious beings can experience illusions? C’est la vie.)
That doesn’t mean we don’t have direct experience of other people.
That was my point.
…
* when people come at this argument from the other direction, positing that ALL existence is an illusion created by the single mind experiencing it, I advise an immediate and brutal punch in the face. Then ask them why they imagined a universe in which imaginary people punch them in the face? If they try and sue you, recline in the knowledge they just contradicted themselves. Ponder it in your cell, if you like.
ScuzzaMan,
.
You seem to be making a point similar to the one KF made at 2. If so, we do not disagree.
Jdk,
For this commenter, it usually refers to anyone who disagrees with him. That is why a rarely respond to his comments.
as to:
How would you ever possibly know one way or the other? According to your ever shifting self-contradicting metaphysics, (which just so happens to lean heavily towards Eastern mysticism whenever you get cornered on materialism), (and which shuns science at the drop of a hat I might add), there is no definiteness to ever to be had in any worldview.
Obviously, the starting presumption and ultimate consequence of your metaphysics is best explained by the term “complete ignorance”
This morning Origenes also showed that your belief system is either self-defeating or meaningless
I’ve looked up aleta’s past interactions with Barry and others on UD, and yes the term troll applies to you aleta. Barry has corrected you a number of times for your trollish comments that try to drag a thread off topic, Although I do not know if you were eventually banned by Barry, I do know you were corrected several times for trollish behavior.
FWIW, I personally consider your debating style to be disingenuous and therefore trollish in its character.
And again, if you are going to defend Eastern Mysticism against both materialism and Theism, then do so. Don’t pussyfoot around the edges and only duck into Eastern Mysticism when called on your buffs trying to defend materialism.
A good place for you to start defending Eastern mysticism, and/or Pantheism, is to offer scientific evidence supporting your view that consciousness is co-terminus with either the entire universe or with the particles of the universe.,,, But seeing as you shun science in favor of your own personal opinion of, ‘complete ignorance is our only option’, I don’t hold much hope of any challenges ever coming from you in this area of science.
But alas, that is how it always goes with trolls is it not?!?
Moreover, I’ve already laid out my scientific defense for Theism (post 15), from quantum mechanics, that shows consciousness must precede the entire universe, and that all other worldviews therefore, necessarily, fail to explain the scientific evidence.
Hmmm. This is quite a misrepresentation. I think science is great. I am discussing the nature and limitations of metaphysics, which is about things that science can’t investigate. The mind of God is metaphysics.
ScuzzaMan: Because our direct, personal, subjective experiences of other people leaves us in no actual doubt that they’re as conscious as we are.
When you dream, I assume you encounter people who appear and act every bit as human as you do. Are these dream characters conscious?
I think it is actually a quite good representation of your worldview,,,, Again:
and again:
Like I said, ” the starting presumption and ultimate consequence of your metaphysics is best explained by the term “complete ignorance”
Moreover, as also pointed out in that thread, the very success of modern science, since it was born out of the Judeo-Christian worldview alone, points to the truthfulness inherent in the Judeo-Christian worldview.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/fixing-the-unfixable-drake-equation/#comment-655979
A false worldview would be unable to bring forth an endeavor, modern science, that has been so fruitful for modern man!
And your self-defeating worldview of ‘we can’t know anything except to know that we can’t know anything” 🙂 is definitely a false worldview that would have prevented the rise of modern science if it were to have been widely believed in medieval Christian Europe.
jdk:
All indications say that you don’t know what science is.
The Turing Test isn’t really a test of awareness, it’s just a test of scamming ability. How well does the machine convince you of its false claim? Is it up to the standards of Bitcoin salesmen, or only as good as a Nigerian Prince?
Faking is one of the tasks that every living thing performs all the time, so you could argue that the Turing Test is a partial measure of aliveness. I don’t think the argument works, but it’s closer to the mark than the conventional notion that Turing measures awareness.
There’s not much of a strategy for creating a conscious machine but to improve its power to mimic consciousness. Then we just hope there’s an axiom of nature that says that once the illusion gets good enough it turns real. It’s highly dubious.
hnorman5,
Why? If the “illusion” gets good enough to fool everyone, then how is this “illusion” any less conscious than we are? But, more importantly, what would we do if these AIs came up with their own Turing test and found us lacking?
Allan Keith
Perfecting a simulation is not the same as making something real. As for AIs giving us a Turing test, I suppose it’s conceptually possible. But it would be an unconscious process on their part.
hnorman5,
I tend to agree with you. But that is merely a subjective opinion. As Barry suggests, there is no way to know for sure because the only thing we have certainty about, even if it is an illusion, is our own consciousness. Through our observations of countless other people, we are fairly certain that they are conscious as well, but that is still short of certainty. And as I mentioned, if the machine behaves, acts and reacts in ways that we would expect other humans to do, why would we say that other humans are conscious but the machine is not? Just because we know the machine was designed and built?
And if that is the reason, would the fact that humans were designed not suggest that we are not conscious either?
Allan Keith: the only thing we have certainty about, even if it is an illusion, is our own consciousness.
If consciousness is an illusion, what is it an illusion of?
Consciousness is what it is. To refer to it as (possibly) an “illusion” implies that there is some actuality to which the illusion is a false representation. For example, mirages in the desert appear to be puddles of water but they are not. They are illusions. But puddles of water actually exist in the world so it is appropriate to call mirages that appear to be puddles, “illusions of puddles.”
Mirages are an illusion of puddles of water, but they are not.
Please fill in the blank:
Consciousness is an illusion of _____ but it is not.
@mike1962
“When you dream, I assume you encounter people who appear and act every bit as human as you do. Are these dream characters conscious?”
I can remember two dreams in the last 50 years.
But I’m not clear as to the relevance of your question; are you trying to imply there’s no distinction between waking and dreaming states, or are you trying to avoid admitting you’ve implied that?
@Barry
“If so, we do not disagree.”
I sometimes forget that other people don’t share my odd sense of humour, so forgive me if my comment seemed dismissive or overly critical.
I should probably have simply said that I think that’s where I see a discontinuity in your logic chain.
ScuzzaMan: I can remember two dreams in the last 50 years.
Interesting.
But I’m not clear as to the relevance of your question; are you trying to imply there’s no distinction between waking and dreaming states, or are you trying to avoid admitting you’ve implied that?
I simply asked a question based on the criteria you specified. So is the answer yes or no? Or would you like to add more criteria?
ScuzzaMan: our direct, personal, subjective experiences of other people leaves us in no actual doubt that they’re as conscious as we are.
Since you have extremely sparse experience with dreaming, I will withdraw the question from you. But anyone else is welcome to answer, if they agree with your original criteria.
To admin: I wish you’d convert over to Discus. It’s a lot better than this blog system. In so many ways.
mike1962
I don’t mean to say I’ve had only two, but that I’ve had only two I can remember. They fade almost immediately upon waking, from thought and memory.
“I simply asked a question based on the criteria you specified.”
Forgive me but I doubt this.
The characters I encounter in my dreams are fundamentally distinct from the characters I encounter in my waking moments, in many ways. As stated, there is no real doubt (not in my mind nor yours, I wager) that one is not conscious and the other is.
This posturing and playing for the sake of pretending to ironclad logical consistency is merely tiresome.
There’s neither necessity nor sense in pretending that consciousness is illusory merely because its form most common to our experience is inextricably associated with matter.
Parse that proposition as you may, there’s nothing of logic in it.
Allan Keith @ 35
Your point is taken that we can’t gain certainty that computers cannot become consciousness. However, I stand by my statement that it is highly dubious. At the very least we can say that there is no reason to think that the inert processing of information has anything to do with consciousness, though it may be skillfully manipulated to mimic it.
If computers gain consciousness, or if they have already done so, then there’s something absolutely axiomatic at work that we don’t know about. It cannot be surmised from the appearance of consciousness.
Allan Keith,
You never answered @36.
Mike, sorry, my comment at 36 wasn’t saying that consciousness was an illusion. I apologize for my poor wording. I was just saying that consciousness, even in the unlikekely event that it is an illusion… and so on.
Allan Keith,
Right. But when you say, “even in the unlikekely [sic] event that it is an illusion”, what do you mean by “illusion” here?