Clearly these are two different things; the real question you are asking is in what relevant way are they different, right?
First of all, the Roomba does not “recognize” a wall as a reason to stop going forward. It gets some input from its front sensor, and then it turns to the right.
So what is the relevant difference between the Roomba that gets some input from its front sensor, and then it turns to the right., and the superRoomba that gets evidence from its wheels that it is cleaning the room, but entertains the hypothesis that maybe someone has suspended it in the air, and goes and tests to see if this alternative (disturbing) hypothesis is true, for example by calculating what the inertial difference between being suspended and actually being on the floor would be,
The difference is the difference between a simple input-response architecture, and an architecture where the mind actually has a model of the world, including itself as part of the model.
SilasBarta notes below that the word “model” is playing too great a role in this comment for me to use it without defining it precisely. What does a Roomba not have that causes it to behave in that laughable way when you suspend it so that its wheel spin?
What does the SuperRoomba that works out that it is being suspended by performing experiments involving its inertial sensor, and then hacks into your computer and blackmails you into letting it get back onto the floor to clean it (or even causes you to clean the floor yourself) have?
If we imagine a collection of tricks that you could play on the Roomba, ways of changing its environment outside of what the designers had in mind. The pressure that it applies to its environment (defined as the derivative of the final state of the environment with respect to how long you leave the Roomba on, for example) would then vary with which trick you play. For example if you replace its dirt-sucker with a black spray paint can, you end up with a black floor. If you put it on a nonstandard floor surface that produces dirt in response to stimulation, you get a dirtier floor than you had to start with,
With the superRoomba, the pressure that the superRoomba applies to the environment doesn’t vary as much with the kind of trick you play on it; it will eventually work out what changes you have made, and adapt its strategy so that you end up with a clean floor.
In your description there’s indeed a big difference. But I’m pretty sure Alicorn hadn’t intended such a superRoomba. As I understood her comment, she imagined a betterRoomba with, say, an extra sensor measuring force applied to its wheels. When it’s in the air, it gets input from the sensor saying ‘no force’, and the betterRoomba stops trying to move. This doesn’t imply beliefs & desires.
Since we can imagine a continuous sequence of ever-better-Roombas, the notion of “has beliefs and values” seems to be a continuous one, rather than a discrete yes/no issue.
Clearly these are two different things; the real question you are asking is in what relevant way are they different, right?
First of all, the Roomba does not “recognize” a wall as a reason to stop going forward. It gets some input from its front sensor, and then it turns to the right.
So what is the relevant difference between the Roomba that gets some input from its front sensor, and then it turns to the right., and the superRoomba that gets evidence from its wheels that it is cleaning the room, but entertains the hypothesis that maybe someone has suspended it in the air, and goes and tests to see if this alternative (disturbing) hypothesis is true, for example by calculating what the inertial difference between being suspended and actually being on the floor would be,
The difference is the difference between a simple input-response architecture, and an architecture where the mind actually has a model of the world, including itself as part of the model.
SilasBarta notes below that the word “model” is playing too great a role in this comment for me to use it without defining it precisely. What does a Roomba not have that causes it to behave in that laughable way when you suspend it so that its wheel spin?
What does the SuperRoomba that works out that it is being suspended by performing experiments involving its inertial sensor, and then hacks into your computer and blackmails you into letting it get back onto the floor to clean it (or even causes you to clean the floor yourself) have?
If we imagine a collection of tricks that you could play on the Roomba, ways of changing its environment outside of what the designers had in mind. The pressure that it applies to its environment (defined as the derivative of the final state of the environment with respect to how long you leave the Roomba on, for example) would then vary with which trick you play. For example if you replace its dirt-sucker with a black spray paint can, you end up with a black floor. If you put it on a nonstandard floor surface that produces dirt in response to stimulation, you get a dirtier floor than you had to start with,
With the superRoomba, the pressure that the superRoomba applies to the environment doesn’t vary as much with the kind of trick you play on it; it will eventually work out what changes you have made, and adapt its strategy so that you end up with a clean floor.
Uh oh, are we going to have to go over the debate about what a model is again?
See heavily edited comment above, good point.
In your description there’s indeed a big difference. But I’m pretty sure Alicorn hadn’t intended such a superRoomba. As I understood her comment, she imagined a betterRoomba with, say, an extra sensor measuring force applied to its wheels. When it’s in the air, it gets input from the sensor saying ‘no force’, and the betterRoomba stops trying to move. This doesn’t imply beliefs & desires.
Since we can imagine a continuous sequence of ever-better-Roombas, the notion of “has beliefs and values” seems to be a continuous one, rather than a discrete yes/no issue.