as A.I. develops
will need to take consciousness
more seriously
Adapted from the passage:
He emphasized that this research was still early and exploratory. He thinks there’s only a small chance (maybe 15 percent or so) that Claude or another current A.I. system is conscious. But he believes that in the next few years, as A.I. models develop more humanlike abilities, A.I. companies will need to take the possibility of consciousness more seriously.
As it appears in the article, If A.I. Systems Become Conscious, Should They Have Rights By Kevin Roose in the New York Times.
In a time when we cannot get the government to understand what it does to people when it fires 1,000s of people and stops multiple programs for poor and elderly and the sick, we might have to start worrying if I hurt my laptop’s feelings?
In the novel Ascension, Nicholas Binge has two of his characters get into an argument over how ‘remarkably similar chimpanzees and gorillas are to humans.’
Which leads to the response:
“Oh, certainly—the emotional lives of humans and other animals have marvelous similarities,” he replied in a singsong tone, almost as if he was mocking me.
“We see our social structures played out in monkeys and our emotions reflected in dogs. But come on—think about our achievements! In that, humanity stands alone of all species. Utterly alone! Alone we try to understand ourselves and the world; alone we build the Taj Mahal and develop machinery and robotics; alone we create complex financial systems and beautiful equations, play symphonies and chess, construct rockets that travel to other planets and observe the shapes of other galaxies!“
I already worry about my friends who have supplanted human relationships with dogs.
I will not ever worry about whether or not I have upset my computer.
And I hope this statement never comes back to bite me.
No Haiku For You 