saved
Conscious artificial intelligence and biological naturalism
Hraness cites a source capture. The source author remains the source.
gist
Anil Seth's PsyArXiv preprint separates rising AI competence from prospects for machine consciousness. He challenges computational functionalism as an unearned default, develops a biological-naturalist case that consciousness depends on living organization, and concludes that real artificial consciousness is unlikely on current digital paths while becoming more plausible for brain-like or life-like systems. He also separates the ethics of unlikely real machine consciousness from nearer risks of consciousness-seeming AI.
ideas
- Intelligence is not consciousness. Goal-achieving competence can rise without there being anything it is like to be the system.
- Computational functionalism needs defense. Treating the right computations as sufficient for consciousness is an assumption, not a free starting point.
- Life-shaped processes matter. Predictive, self-maintaining living organization gives biological naturalism its positive case without carbon mysticism.
- Trajectory matters. Real conscious AI looks unlikely on present silicon paths and more plausible only as systems become brain-like or life-like.
- Seeming consciousness is the near-term hazard. Convincing appearances of machine feeling can distort moral attention even when no experience is present.
quotes
“I consider why people might think AI could develop consciousness, identifying some biases that lead us astray.”
“I’ll instead make the case that consciousness depends on our nature as living organisms – a form of biological naturalism.”
“If we sell our minds too cheaply to our machine creations, we not only overestimate them – we underestimate our selves.”