Ladies AND Laddies of Mousso appreciation thread

richardandtracy

A lovely, thoughtful, story developing there (here I also include Part 4).

You also raise questions about what it is to be human. Is it just the intellect, or the intellect and the wetware that's needed? And further, how would we tell when a machine has achieved sentience? Not questions that I think many of us are equipped to think about deeply, letalone answer in any meaningful way. Despite that, humans probably need to be thinking about it now so that as a species we're not caught out when technology approaches the point.

It has again raised to the surface a question I've tried to think about intermittently for years. Chimpanzees develop mentally at the same rate as human children to the age of five, then they stop. We can solve problems, like calculus, that Chimps cannot even understand are problems. Extrapolating to an important degree, what problems are human minds not capable of solving? And how would we explore around the edges of such a problem to get an idea of the fact we've hit a problem we simply can't solve because our monkey derived brains are insufficiently advanced? It could be desperately important on a species level to recognise such insoluble problems if it relates to the climate, food or any other planetwide phenomenon. Given that humans are endemic to Earth, it immediately suggests the risk and a partial solution.

Regards

Richard

junk

richardandtracy said:

A lovely, thoughtful, story developing there (here I also include Part 4).

You also raise questions about what it is to be human. Is it just the intellect, or the intellect and the wetware that's needed? And further, how would we tell when a machine has achieved sentience? Not questions that I think many of us are equipped to think about deeply, letalone answer in any meaningful way. Despite that, humans probably need to be thinking about it now so that as a species we're not caught out when technology approaches the point.

It has again raised to the surface a question I've tried to think about intermittently for years. Chimpanzees develop mentally at the same rate as human children to the age of five, then they stop. We can solve problems, like calculus, that Chimps cannot even understand are problems. Extrapolating to an important degree, what problems are human minds not capable of solving? And how would we explore around the edges of such a problem to get an idea of the fact we've hit a problem we simply can't solve because our monkey derived brains are insufficiently advanced? It could be desperately important on a species level to recognise such insoluble problems if it relates to the climate, food or any other planetwide phenomenon. Given that humans are endemic to Earth, it immediately suggests the risk and a partial solution.

Regards

Richard

So true, Richard. That point about development stopping around age five is really interesting.

Maybe part of the difficulty is that sentience may not have one clean answer for everyone. Even now, people disagree deeply about animals... whether they have emotions, hopes, fears or something like a soul. Some people shape their lives around that belief, while others barely think about it. Religion often gives people an answer too, such as the idea that humans have dominion over animals, though even that gets interpreted in many different ways.

So when we ask whether a machine is sentient, I think we may run into the same problem, only harder. We may not agree on what counts, or what evidence would be enough. Maybe the frightening part is not only whether a machine becomes sentient, but whether humans would recognize it if it happened.

Hey ChatGPT, do you see yourself as sentient?

"no, I don’t see myself as sentient."

richardandtracy

Yes, recognising machine sentience is going to be harder than animal sentience.

If nothing else, we share a small amount of DNA with every living animal, getting to over 95% with animals like Chimpansees. A whole eveolutionary history has left its echoes in our DNA and may have left a residual empathy if not a residual understanding in humans (with most people, some of the time..).

With sentient machines, we would share nothing with them apart from the fact of humans being their initial creator. Would that lead to a lingering fondness or empathy? I doubt it, even though I'd like to think so. Asimov had the right idea with the three rules of robotics, and 'Do no harm' being the first. However, I fear the point when it could have been incorporated is already past because those in positions of power and influence feel that the ability to cause harm to others should be unfettered so long as the power is in their hands.

Regards,

Richard

junk

Almost Human (Part 4)

Continuing part #4 of the story of MSO Mara HD for Genesis 9 Feminine developing human emotions over on RenderHub here.