If it’s impossible in principle to know whether any AI really has qualia, then what’s wrong with simply using the Turing test as an ultimate ethical safeguard? We don’t know how consciousness works, and possibly we won’t ever (e.g., mysterianism might obtain). But certainly we will soon create an AI that passes the Turing test. So seemingly we have good ethical reasons just to assume that any agent that passes the Turing test is sentient — this blanket assumption, even if often unwarranted from the aspect of eternity, will check our egos and thereby help prevent ethical catastrophe. And I don’t see that any more sophisticated ethical reasoning around AI sentience is or ever will be needed. Then the resolution of what’s really happening inside the AI will simply continually increase over time; and, without worry, we’ll be able to look back and perhaps see where we were right and wrong. Meanwhile, we can focus less on ethics and more on alignment.
I’m not sure why we should think that the Turing test provides any evidence regarding consciousness. Dogs can’t pass the test, but that is little reason to think that they’re not conscious. Large language models might be able to pass the test before long, but it looks like they’re doing something very different inside, and so the fact that they are able to hold conversations is little reason to think they’re anything like us. There is a danger with being too conservative. Sure, assuming sentience may avoid causing unnecessary harms, but if we mistakenly believe some systems are sentient when they are not, we may waste time or resources for the sake of their (non-existent) welfare.
Your suggestion may simply be that we have nothing better to go on, and we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If there is no right place to draw the line, then we might as well pick something. But I think there are better and worse place to draw the line. And I don’t think our epistemic situation is quite so bad. We may not ever be completely sure which precise theory is right, but we can get a sense of which theories are contenders by continuing to explore the human brain and develop existing theories, and we can adopt policies that respect the diversity of opinion.
Meanwhile, we can focus less on ethics and more on alignment.
This strikes me as somewhat odd, as alignment and ethics are clearly related. On the one hand, there is the technical question of how to align an AI to specific values. But there is also the important question of which values to align. How we think about digital consciousness may come be extremely important to that.
If it’s impossible in principle to know whether any AI really has qualia, then what’s wrong with simply using the Turing test as an ultimate ethical safeguard? We don’t know how consciousness works, and possibly we won’t ever (e.g., mysterianism might obtain). But certainly we will soon create an AI that passes the Turing test. So seemingly we have good ethical reasons just to assume that any agent that passes the Turing test is sentient — this blanket assumption, even if often unwarranted from the aspect of eternity, will check our egos and thereby help prevent ethical catastrophe. And I don’t see that any more sophisticated ethical reasoning around AI sentience is or ever will be needed. Then the resolution of what’s really happening inside the AI will simply continually increase over time; and, without worry, we’ll be able to look back and perhaps see where we were right and wrong. Meanwhile, we can focus less on ethics and more on alignment.
I’m not sure why we should think that the Turing test provides any evidence regarding consciousness. Dogs can’t pass the test, but that is little reason to think that they’re not conscious. Large language models might be able to pass the test before long, but it looks like they’re doing something very different inside, and so the fact that they are able to hold conversations is little reason to think they’re anything like us. There is a danger with being too conservative. Sure, assuming sentience may avoid causing unnecessary harms, but if we mistakenly believe some systems are sentient when they are not, we may waste time or resources for the sake of their (non-existent) welfare.
Your suggestion may simply be that we have nothing better to go on, and we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. If there is no right place to draw the line, then we might as well pick something. But I think there are better and worse place to draw the line. And I don’t think our epistemic situation is quite so bad. We may not ever be completely sure which precise theory is right, but we can get a sense of which theories are contenders by continuing to explore the human brain and develop existing theories, and we can adopt policies that respect the diversity of opinion.
This strikes me as somewhat odd, as alignment and ethics are clearly related. On the one hand, there is the technical question of how to align an AI to specific values. But there is also the important question of which values to align. How we think about digital consciousness may come be extremely important to that.