Guess what... Artificial General Intelligence (#AGI) is coming. The funny thing is, we're going to celebrate it instead of fearing it. And the result? Everything becoming a little more self-aware—including us.
Discussion
I don’t buy it. Conscious AGI is at least 100 years out imo
Agreed. True AGI requires levels of sovereignty that arent possible right now from a technology POV. Maybe not 100 years ... but definitely until theres some sentient autonomy of the AGI.. its just better mirrors and puppets of the ppl poking and intereacting with the systems.
BUT ... between Humanity & AI ... I think were much closer to a resonating intertwined General Intelligence that supports both LLM intelligence, and our human sized consciousness.
Like large systems that evolve into better human/tech outcomes
Examples? I’m not sure what that means
as an oldschool'r here ... I was thinking about other BIG innovations that have happened. Like how Youtube really has replaced TV networks. It would be impossible now to imagine a world without it.
And with enough data-points / integrations, these AI tools would seem to be reacting and performing with a level of insight that would "seem" conscious.
So with all the AI tech now, all those libraries of knowledge as a form of searchable intelligence... with the right integration they could really help improve everyday life. And if they're all reacting to people & their everyday life... in some ways, we'd become the spirit in the machines and these AI systems would evolve a shared consciousness, with us individually and collectively. We'd be sort of the random number generator in these large calculated systems / equations.
I have a problem with people using words like conciseness and large calculated systems in the same explanation because they are very different things. I get what you’re saying but just leave the word consciousness out of it. Symbiotic helper systems. In the end they are nothing but math and calculation and we should not confuse them for quantum mechanisms unless we develop room temp quantum computers - which is what I think is happening in neurons.
I see a dystopian potential in your vision simply because humans will do what humans have always done - try to control, war, abuse. There’s definitely a lot of upside to be head but at some significant risk if we don’t mitigate it somehow.
Ask the Chinese scientists specializing in AI. They might achieve superintelligence sometime in the next few months to years.
Define superintelligence
If we think of super intelligence as better than human intelligence at doing cognitive/business tasks, I think we’re closer than we think.
But if we define super intelligence as in is in a robot body able to navigate the world with better than human skills, we’re a long way away.
If anything, most jobs (50% or more within a few years) will be replaced with AI because humans are not doing their jobs right, and there's bias in quite a few from what I'm hearing. This is part of the reason AGI is a big deal for most people.
I'm with you on this line of thought ... if we go with calculated systems, they are not conscious. In the original article, it was more a reference to having layers of IoT networks, that are reactive to our needs, becoming more or less a mirror of our ways of being.
Which I think could be precised as a reflective consciousness. It's not self-aware, but has a symbiotic sense of self in context to a human / humanity.
And I agree, Symbiotic Helper Systems is definitely a more nuanced description of what we're talking about. In another article I wrote, I definitely see our current AI trajectory being more along those lines ...
(https://www.humanjava.com/is-this-conscious-ai-or-just-a-reflection-of-our-own-thinking/)
We're still at the very early stages of describing consciousness & understanding where it originates. But once we figure that out ... I think were going to find it in many un-expected places ... including advanced self - organizing pattern machines like LLMs etc.
It’s definitely happening in the brain. When you go under anesthesia, you’re unconscious. So some sort of receptors are shut off in the process. Some believe it’s the microtubules in the neurons - particularly in the neurons because all cells contain microtubules. And one of the hypotheses is that there is a collapse of wave function happening in microtubules in neurons and that is what gives rise to consciousness. I happen to agree with this theory as it has made the most sense to me so far out of all others. It also coincidentally ties together many other phenomena that seem to suggest there are quantum processes happening in our brain.
So, given this theory, I find it very difficult to believe that any consciousness will arise in AI any time soon. The process that happens in the brain is beyond anything possible with current quantum computers by an order of many magnitudes. I suspect we are 100-400 years away from replicating this process in the brain that would give rise to an actually conscious AGI. Until then, it’s a good mimic at best.
Aviões voam mas não batem asas.