Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness (Empiricist League Presentation)

@johnchavens

March, 2025

The Science

March, 2025

Now, the answer to the question about AI being a form of mind is a straightforward “NO” if we assume that mind and consciousness comprise more than information processing. The obvious argument is that consciousness is about being aware of the internal and external world, about the capacity to feel and experience the world in a subjective manner. Mind, Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence Maria Cecilia Dedios, Somatosphere (April 6, 2016)

…Your subjective, conscious experience is just as real as the tree outside your window or the photons striking your retina—even though you alone feel it. Many philosophers and scientists today tend to dismiss the subjective and focus wholly on an objective, third-person reality—a reality that would be just the same if men had no minds. They treat subjective reality as a footnote…or they announce that, actually, it doesn’t even exist. The Closing of the Scientific Mind David Gelernter, Commentary Magazine (January 1, 2014)

The Emotion

The attachments I describe do not follow from whether computational objects really have emotion or intelligence, because they do not. The attachments follow from what they evoke in their users. Our new objects don’t so much “fool” us into thinking they are communicating with us; roboticists have learned those few triggers that help us fool ourselves. We don’t need much. We are ready to enter the romance. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other Sherry Turkle, Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self

The Delight In The Data

Credit: Craig Berry

The Ethics

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