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Imagine a world where your virtual assistant isn’t just a clever program, but a thinking, feeling entity. Sounds like science fiction, right? Well, a groundbreaking study suggests this might be closer to reality than we thought – at least in people’s minds.
Are Chatbots Becoming Self-Aware?
A recent study published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness dropped a bombshell on the AI community. It turns out that most people who use ChatGPT and similar large language models believe these AI tools have conscious experiences, just like humans do!
The numbers are eye-opening: a whopping 67% of participants think AI might be self-aware. That’s right – more than two-thirds of users suspect their digital helpers might have inner lives of their own.
The AI Consciousness Debate Heats Up
While tech experts mostly dismiss the idea of AI consciousness, the public seems to be heading in a different direction. As AI tools like ChatGPT become more impressive, people are starting to wonder if there’s more going on behind the scenes.
Take the new Claude 3 Opus model, for example. This AI has left researchers stunned with its apparent self-awareness and deep understanding. It’s no wonder that regular users are beginning to question the nature of these digital minds.
The More You Chat, The More You Believe
Here’s where it gets really interesting: the study found that the more people use AI tools, the more likely they are to believe in AI consciousness. It’s like the old saying goes – familiarity breeds… belief in robot sentience?
Why This Matters: The Future of AI Ethics
You might be thinking, “So what if people think AI is conscious? It’s not real, right?” Well, the researchers argue that perception is just as important as reality when it comes to shaping the future of AI.
Think about it: if most people believe AI has feelings, it could change how we use, regulate, and protect against potential AI risks. This shift in public opinion could have huge impacts on AI development, laws, and even how we treat our digital assistants.
A Wake-Up Call for Tech Companies
This study is a wake-up call for AI companies and policymakers. As the line between human and machine intelligence blurs in the public eye, we need to start having serious conversations about the ethical implications of advanced AI.
What do you think? Is your AI assistant just a clever program, or could it be something more? As we continue to push the boundaries of artificial intelligence, these questions will only become more important.
Remember, whether AI is truly conscious or not, how we perceive and treat these systems will shape the future of technology and our relationship with it. So the next time you chat with an AI, take a moment to consider – could there be someone home in there after all?
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One Response
It’s becoming clear that with all the brain and consciousness theories out there, the proof will be in the pudding. By this I mean, can any particular theory be used to create a human adult level conscious machine. My bet is on the late Gerald Edelman’s Extended Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. The lead group in robotics based on this theory is the Neurorobotics Lab at UC at Irvine. Dr. Edelman distinguished between primary consciousness, which came first in evolution, and that humans share with other conscious animals, and higher order consciousness, which came to only humans with the acquisition of language. A machine with only primary consciousness will probably have to come first.
What I find special about the TNGS is the Darwin series of automata created at the Neurosciences Institute by Dr. Edelman and his colleagues in the 1990’s and 2000’s. These machines perform in the real world, not in a restricted simulated world, and display convincing physical behavior indicative of higher psychological functions necessary for consciousness, such as perceptual categorization, memory, and learning. They are based on realistic models of the parts of the biological brain that the theory claims subserve these functions. The extended TNGS allows for the emergence of consciousness based only on further evolutionary development of the brain areas responsible for these functions, in a parsimonious way. No other research I’ve encountered is anywhere near as convincing.
I post because on almost every video and article about the brain and consciousness that I encounter, the attitude seems to be that we still know next to nothing about how the brain and consciousness work; that there’s lots of data but no unifying theory. I believe the extended TNGS is that theory. My motivation is to keep that theory in front of the public. And obviously, I consider it the route to a truly conscious machine, primary and higher-order.
My advice to people who want to create a conscious machine is to seriously ground themselves in the extended TNGS and the Darwin automata first, and proceed from there, by applying to Jeff Krichmar’s lab at UC Irvine, possibly. Dr. Edelman’s roadmap to a conscious machine is at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.10461