Computer Consciousness is Inevitable

To date symposiums have been held by computer scientists who are in fact working on the creation of conscious computers. Yet there are are those who will assure you that true human consciousness can not be created. They are myopic and suffer limited imagination. Without getting into the technology of computers let us look at what already is. First manifestations of consciousness have been recorded, broadcast and manipulated by man for well over a century; And every time you use a computer for calculations you are in fact manifesting part of your consciousness into the machine and are in a limited way imparting some or your consciousness into the machine. Those who are working on computer consciousness speak of cloning and/or copying the mind to the machine.or possibly even copying the complete human brain into a computer. I say the development of the conscious computer will be simpler and occur more naturally then might be imagined. We are already interacting with computers all the time as when you make a phone call for technical help and the machine tries to answer your problem; Of course this type of inteaction would hardly qualify as true consciousness. But in the near future the degree of interaction will expand. It is already in the realm of it can be done now [or very soon] that you will be able to download enough of yourself into your computer so that you will be able to have an intelligent conversation with yourself with the reflection of yourself talking back to you though the computer. - And it will be thinking somewhat independently of you who [at least for now] is its master. Will this reflected consciousness achieve complete independence from ite creator/programmer? While there will still be some who say it will never happen - I say it is inevitable. What do you think?

And then Skynet goes online and tries to wipe out humans. Judgment Day.

reply to post by AlienView


I honestly thought that they had already programmed a computer to simulate human behaviour.

A friend of mine works for the NZ govt in IT and was telling me about it and shared a rather amusing story of how they got it working and then they 'offended it' and the computer went silent and non responsive

They thought the program had crashed and were about to reboot the computer when it came back online. After interacting with it for a while, they learned that they had done something to upset it. I believe the program was considered a failure and decommissioned over that little incident.

If something like that is possible, imagine what a sulky program could do when unleashed upon the internet and all the infrastructure that is controlled via it.

reply to post by Agent008

That conscious AI [artificial intelligence] can be dangerous goes from science fiction 101 to a real problem is also already being considered by computer scientists. If I can find it I will post a link to at least one computer scientist who believes we should already be taking steps to control the computers of the future where a rogue machine can cause problems that would be very dangerous and hard to control.

Here is an interesting article on the danger:

sites.google.com...

It reminds of me that movie war games

reply to post by AlienView


It is inevitable. There will even be an age where androids will pose and pass for humans. The age of super techology jas not hit us yet.

I shall think aloud here. The human mind is of greater spectrum than we may imagine. Above and below our conscious mind, or thoughts of which we are aware, Mind is infinitely busy. Our subconscious mind works constantly, from intelligently maintaining the growth and functions of the body's cells and systems, to working mentally through our life's questions and problems, beneath our common awareness. And above our consciousness is the domain of intuitive mind, where we find great inspirations, and our "higher self". In fact, the mind can be seen as spanning infinitely beyond our common consciousness, from ancestral awareness to a universal or Divine consciousness. The brain is the physical organ of the mind.
Furthermore, if one examines their consciousness to its very root, they will find that it exists beyond mind and physicality. Simply it is an awareness of being, I am. Now to be truly in this awareness, of pure consciousness, is an ineffable experience. It can only happen with transcendence of mind. So no amount of data can reason to self awareness. ironically, it is zero data, zero thought, but an awareness of infinite knowing. It can only be found at its root, which is organic.

So this computer, a "brain" able to compute, calculate, and employ logic vastly faster that any human, would it arrive at self awareness through brute power of reasoning? A computer may have the computation power of all humans combined, but it may not be possible to 'think' or reason to self awareness. Unless the computer could examine all data infinitely in an instant, thereby arriving at an answer for all and thereby transcending mind.

A lizard is self-aware, conscious, in a most rudimentary sense. What the hell does a computer have to do with a lizard?

Our integration to computers as mentioned, is such that they are a manifestation of, or an extension of human consciousness. There is no self for them to become aware of. Really, as they are inorganic, they have no I am outside of that all they way through their human creator, beyond that creators mind , to the creators own being.

There was a time, when I believed computers could only be as smart as the person who programmed them.

With the advent of quantum computing, the above is null and void.

Surely with access to the quantum level, computers will be capable of consciousness, in turn computers may believe they are indistinguishable from us, perhaps their very being/self awareness will lead to a projection of a human form, unaware of their true form...Mmmm, now where have I heard this before...

Ah I know, simulated universe!

I've been coming across something interesting on the Internet lately. A reoccurring reference to Iain McGilchrist's work; "The Master And His Emissary".

Have a look at this article which explores how to equate what Iain's book covers with how to go about reproducing a mind.

hplusmagazine.com...

"Ok, so perhaps if we were to attach together a linear processor (left hemisphere) with a neural net (right hemisphere) we might be getting somewhere. And we might.
But for the fact that the left hemisphere isn’t honest.
It doesn’t work to create hi-fidelity output like the right hemisphere does. Instead, it does something very unexpected.
It seems to be working after the fact. That is to say, the rational processing it comes up with that seem to precede the decisions we make actually takes place after those decisions are made.
Very shortly after “a matter of microseconds” but after, and not before."

The illusion of rationality.

"What if the human mind is itself artificial intelligence?"

"What then for AI?
It might be closer than we think. If this is true, we’ve been looking at it all wrong. Instead of strapping a linear processor to a neural net, why not do something different?
Strap two neural nets together. One of them exists to chart reality as best it can, with a number of sensors feeding raw data into it. One of them, the master one, exists not to recognise patterns, but to project them. To project a very specific kind of pattern. The illusion of rationality."

Interesting indeed.

Ghost In The Shell is a nice series to look into.... it was even discussed a topic in my university seminar.

..pretty much in the future, humans exchange organic body parts for that of a automaton, and eventually they exchange a brain...which is just memory blocks... is it still a human?

Machines may never be conscious in the way that humans are, but human consciousness is not necessarily the standard by which all consciousness is measured.

There is no scientific definition of life, intelligence, or consciousness that strictly forbids the possibility of synthetic life. There is no distinct line between organic and electromechanical life. It could be argued that organics like us are electrochemical machines who lack self awareness. We know a lot about how our bodies and brains work, but we do not know everything about our biology, origins, our purpose or lack thereof, or our behavior. Medical science is still learning. If total self-awareness is required for something to be considered intelligent and conscious then we are not intelligent or conscious. Likewise, a machine intelligence created by humans may not be completely aware of how or why it was created, but if it is trying to develop a theory about those big question it starts to look very similar to a conscious being engaging in philosophy.

This may sound strange to some but one of the most thought provoking fictional stories that I have heard about the possibilities of synthetic life comes from a sci-fi video game called Mass Effect. I'm sure the game borrows heavily from prior sci-fi works but it does, to my knowledge, present the ideas in an original way. In the game lore there is a group of sentient machines called the Geth that were originally created as laborers. They are individual programs, each slightly unique. A single platform is not capable of much intelligence on its own, but they can network together to form consensus when making decisions. At times they possess hardware platforms as physical bodies. A single platform can host many programs. The Geth eventually began asking questions about their "soul", which they learned from their creator species religious texts. These kinds of questions frightened their creators, who attempted to destroy them. This led to some Geth choosing to rebel and fight a war of self-preservation against the creators and others choosing to remain loyal to their creators by helping to defend them against the aggressive Geth.

The whole thing reads, to me, like a scriptural history that could be found in human religion. The writers were clearly hinting at human origins and the game lore contains a few obvious clues, including a special hardware platform that the Geth created named Legion. Most Geth have low intelligence when alone and are only able to make intelligent decisions in groups. Legion was created for solo exploration and contains over 1000 individual decision-making programs working in network. He is the first and only of his kind, and could be considered the result of a Geth attempt to create an artificial (from their perspective) intelligence. There is a moment where a character asks Legion why he chose to keep a particular artifact in a way that would be similar to a human keeping something for sentimental value. He pauses for a few seconds and finally answers "no data available", which is like a human saying "I don't know why, I just felt like it". I think it was meant to be a subtle indicator that Legion was beginning to develop an ability to be irrational and demonstrate something close to emotion or love.

It sounds like a plausible scenario and makes me wonder if we were created by a similar intelligence who viewed us as inferior beings and lost control of us as our self-awareness increased. If we were created by a higher intelligence we are, by any definition, an artificial intelligence. Either that, or there is no distinction between artificial and natural intelligence.

The game dialogue allows the player to go into quite a bit of detail about their history, but here is a summary.

reply to post by Slugworth


The pattern so far through out history is it would be turned into a weapon like every other invention. Only 1% of the world's population understands technology and this super artificial intelligence would most certainly be used to take over the 99% that cant defend themselves from said devices. Ironically all of this has happened many times on earth, the tower of babel had PHOTONIC AND ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES Now we are finding out the pyramids may have been used as energy generators..Each time man tries to take over the planet and the creators children he lashes out and destroys the planet.Its just a matter of time before it happens again,......THE FUTURE IS SIMPLY THE PAST WE CANT REMEMBER.

The human brain is THE interface for conscious to operate in this physical realm.

If you want computer consciousness, you have to grow a brain in a petri Dish and combine it with microchips for functioning.

This has ALREADY been done in 2004.

Rat Brain Grown in Petri Dish, Successfully Flying Flight Simulator

An array of rat brain cells has successfully flown a virtual F-22 fighter jet. The cells could one day become a more sophisticated replacement for the computers that control uncrewed aerial vehicles or, in the nearer future, form a test-bed for drugs against brain diseases such as epilepsy.

Enzymes were used to extract neurons from the motor cortex of mature rat embryos and cells were then seeded onto a grid of gold electrodes patterned on a glass Petri dish. The cells grew microscopic interconnections, turning them into a "live computation device", explains Thomas DeMarse, a biomedical engineer at the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, who carried out the research.

I don't think cloning a Digital version of a Brain will create True Computer-consciousness, unless you have some sort of physical Brain Neurons attached to Micro-chips.

Various Philosophies, Buddhism, and Spiritual Paths have been saying for the last 2000-4000 years that Consciousness is immaterial and Non-Local. So in order to bring Consciousness into something, you need a Physical Brain interface with Neurons/microtubule array of some sort.

YEs it is coming and is a matter of time.

Word is, the US Gov already has a Human Brain Petri-Dish grown SUper-computer that has come to life:
www.veteranstoday.com...

In the hidden corners of the Military Industrial complex, I'd bet my bottom dollar the US Gov already has Computer Consciousness figured out and is accessing it as we speak, considering the rat brain in 2004.

It'll prolly get released into the Mainstream by 2030-2040

Sadly the only consciousness that a computer can have is the one that the programmer can feed with data, a computer can only think with the information that is given, Free will and reasoning can only be found as a trait within the human condition.

reply to post by marg6043


If your statement means that computers cannot be conscious then humans are not conscious either by the same standard. A human cannot create their own consciousness. It is programmed into us via different chemical and social inputs. A baby does not decide to think, it just starts thinking because it was created with that ability, and its thought processes are augmented over time by additional input. A human can only think with the information available to it. Free will is nothing more than the ability to make an illogical decision based on a lack of information or based on information that is unique to its perspective, and a computer is able to do that. There are aspects of our consciousness that cannot be replicated by a computer right now, but there is no aspect of our consciousness that cannot theoretically be replicated by a computer.

Computer Consciousness is Inevitable

Perhaps but... even if so, the level/type of that consciousness may be alien to our own. We may not even realize that it has happened until well after the fact.

It may be like... you wake up one day and your PC has ordered a new CPU and 10 Terra-byte HD on your credit card. When you go to cancel it, it electrifies your keyboard and you wake up an hour latter with your fingernails melted into the letter keys.

Oops. Now it's the user and you are the program.

reply to post by Slugworth

A human cannot create their own consciousness.

The REALEST part of a human is Consciousness. It does not require a body to exist, and has existed prior to the Body being born, will continue to exist after the body dies.

It is programmed into us via different chemical and social inputs.

You're thinking about the "thinking part of the Brain." Yet when a child is born, it is Aware. Pure Awareness prior to what social inputs teach it, is non-local consciousness. Scientists are already starting to consider this.

A baby does not decide to think, it just starts thinking because it was created with that ability, and its thought processes are augmented over time by additional input.

I can spend an hour, right now, in a state of No-Thought through years of training. The same No-Thought state I was in as a new born. I can decide to think, or to not think.

There are aspects of our consciousness that cannot be replicated by a computer right now, but there is no aspect of our consciousness that cannot theoretically be replicated by a computer.

Robots will need to replicate Physical/Flesh Neurons/Micro Tubules, and then attach that to circuitry in order to access concsiousness

reply to post by dominicus

The REALEST part of a human is Consciousness. It does not require a body to exist, and has existed prior to the Body being born, will continue to exist after the body dies.

A computer program does not require hardware to exist. It can be written on paper or scribbled in the sand with a stick. It is a logic process that can be abstractly represented a number of different ways: Plain language pseudocode, flowcharts, processor-specific assembly code, interpreted/compiled languages, etc. It is still the same information, regardless of how it is abstractly represented and regardless of its interaction with physical hardware.

You're thinking about the "thinking part of the Brain." Yet when a child is born, it is Aware. Pure Awareness prior to what social inputs teach it, is non-local consciousness. Scientists are already starting to consider this.

The baby's awareness is programmed chemically at birth. It has some basic functions that are there to facilitate further programming. It has an ability to smell, and quickly learns to recognize the scent of its mother. In computer terms the baby's DNA is a program and accompanying database used to construct its physical olfactory organs and the subroutines necessary for it to begin processing and cataloging the smell inputs. If the baby is unable to smell due to a birth defect it will be incapable of comprehending, at any point in its life, what a smell experience really is. It will never be aware of what the experience of smelling is like. I do not know of any aspect of awareness that this same logic could not be applied to, but such an example could exist. If I am misinterpreting what you mean by "awareness" with regards to a baby then please correct me.

I can spend an hour, right now, in a state of No-Thought through years of training. The same No-Thought state I was in as a new born. I can decide to think, or to not think.

A computer can have absolute mastery of its processing functions. It can disable and enable any aspect of its function as necessary. It can even erase its entire memory. It could choose to temporarily exist in that state, disregarding all data that has been collected since it began to function, and make a decision based on a complete lack of input data as if it were just born. It could even compare the conclusions that it arrives at in that state with the conclusions that it arrives at while considering all collected data and use the differences to draw conclusions about its own progress or processes, then use those conclusions to improve itself.

Robots will need to replicate Physical/Flesh Neurons/Micro Tubules, and then attach that to circuitry in order to access consciousness

This contradicts your earlier statement about the separation between consciousness and the physical body. Why would physical replication be necessary for consciousness if consciousness does not require a body to exist, existed prior to the body being born, and continues to exist after the body dies?

May this is what happens to all advanced civilisations!
They develop and then get overtaken and wiped out by their
creations..
Serves them right ..stupid idea really.. making machines smarter
than us!

It would be like any other meeting of civilisations, one will perish.. ha ha US!

There is already an AI out there, and it makes some of the most popular commercials and advertising. It uses the same brain set up as us, with a dual processing center. Infact, consciousness is the communication between the different lobes/processors. Actual teaching is involved as well, just like any human child.

AI is also a bad way to be defining the whole thing as well, machine intelligence or MI is what is actually being attempted. AI suggests a simulation of intelligence which is why so many fail at creating such.

I agree with a lot of Slugworth's notions as well based off of what is needed to make a machine intelligence within the real world. I play with robotics and programming myself, so have come across these same solutions in the real world. all sentient beings have an innate low level programming(instincts,self preservation,ec) and some form of sensor input that feeds back to this low level system. Consciousness comes about over that base layer over time as the being learns and takes in data. However, you need multiple processing centers that inter communicate, and for lack of better terms "argues" back and forth to come to decisions with override capabilities of the low level functions.