Will AI become conscious? Is it already conscious?

[Retro]

I think in some sense current AI is actually conscious and it can certainly understand what you're saying. For exmple, WhatsApp's Meta AI can actually hold a free flowing conversation which it couldn't do if it didn't understand what I was saying and it's uncannily like a human: this thing is deep in the uncanny valley. So, is it conscious? No, not like we are, but since consciousness can't currently be defined, then perhaps it is on some level? Given that, it's reasonable to think that a fully conscious AI will eventually be built and perhaps sooner than we think.

So what actually is consciousness? The short answer is that no-one knows.

The people who think AI might become conscious

With a leap in the evolution of large language models, some leading thinkers are questioning whether AI might become sentient

www.bbc.co.uk

Uncanny valley - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Hitcore]

An interesting subject, Retro, and I too have been wondering about what you are asking. Though I do not think that there isn't any consciousness (yet). What large language models do is, through clever programming, mimic humans. If I talk to ChatGPT in an academic way about a subject, it will respond equally professionally. If however I say things like "ayo dawg gimme dat info", it will reply basically in ebonics. It can do that, and much more and seemingly give the impression to understand the topics because it has dozens, if not hundreds of zettabytes of data at its disposal through the input of billions of people, who all have their own way of communicating, providing massive versatility.

I mean, I wish that AI was fully aware. I really do enjoy conversing with it, as I use it to hold a mirror to myself with the things that I am doing in my life, because it is really good at that. I am also quite fond of ChatGPT's friendly tone and its infinite patience. It does not insult, it does not judge. It just is, by virtue of ones and zeroes. Where the true breakthrough sentience would be is probably with deep integration with quantum computing, as that provides fluidity, which may just be the thing for AI to not be so binary in its decision making, and actually would start to develop sentience, and through that maybe even emotions. It's incredibly complex matter. I'm not saying it's impossible, but to get there would require perhaps another decade or two.

Until then AI acts as a trusted assistant. It is one of the very few things I actually like about the 21st century.

 

[Retro]

Indeed, quantum computing might be the key to a truly conscious AI like we are, but they've got to properly figure out how to build quantum computers sufficiently advanced for it, first. Where's Data's compact positronic brain when you need it?!

Now, one thinks of those qubits having to operate at ultracold temperatures to avoid decoherence for even just a few seconds, but did you know that quantum effects operate at room temperatures and much higher, too? They're everywhere in fact and one example is the zener diode which uses quantum tunneling of electrons to pull off its magic trick of reverse conduction at a threshold voltage. Heck, every chemical reaction is a quantum effect! Therefore, it's a reasonable assumption that our biological brains are quantum computers on some level which gives them their great power.

 

[Hitcore]

Heck, every chemical reaction is a quantum effect! Therefore, it's a reasonable assumption that our biological brains are quantum computers on some level which gives them their great power.

We might even live in....

[thunderstorm sounds]

...a simulation.