Just to make it clear: I do not believe this and I am convinced good old human greed is what’s really driving the ai and data-center insanity. Also, LLMs are not and will never become AGI.
Having said that: if an artificial super-intelligence were to emerge, building more data-centers could well be one of it’s primary goals. Since it wouln’t be concerned with consequences for the environment or humanity, it could pursue this at any cost, with only speed and scale in mind. Convincing financial markets and business elites of the necessity of such a buildout would be the ideal way of achieving results. In this scenario, fighting this buildout by any means would be the only sensible response and of utmost importance.
It’s a somewhat funny, somewhat depressing thought for me and I literally had it in the shower. Surely I can’t be the first to come up with this, but I also can’t remember having read it before.
Neurons transmit signals via action potentials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
The “hard problem of consciousness” is complex with many theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
As for experiencing stimuli and sensation. Sometimes called “the easy problem of consciousness”. That’s explainable by modern research. It’s a product of biological systems that are designed to be stimulated by specific stimuli. All of them are complex.
Cognitive functions are a product of neural architecture (neural pathways and regional hubs) in the brain but also from the constantly changing state of neuron potentials (how likely a neuron will or won’t fire at a very specific point in time) that are influenced by internal and external stimuli.
Brain oscillations, (brain waves that vary in frequency through the day and tasks, and regions) also heavily influenced this state. So does sleep or how long someone is awake. How much attention they give some things or if they are mind wandering and a whole host of other influences that directly impact priming effects (an effect where once a pathway in the brain has an action potential go through it, it’s more likely to fire again --this is time dependent). And subsequently that changing state I referred to.
At present it is incredibly difficult to predict brain activity at a macro scale. Because it does not follow predictable patterns. Because the state is constantly changing. Too many interacting factors that can’t be accounted for in a single model.
Humans also do not use real math in our cognitive functions. We use heuristics. I don’t know the exact distance or speed that a baseball is traveling towards me. Yet I can predict when I need to swing a bat. (Not me personally but some humans can do this).
Even expert baseball players are not computing the actual real speed (in any unit) when observing the ball moving towards them. They use heuristics which are much faster though less accurate. Experts get better at their estimates though compared to non experts.
We aren’t calculators and we don’t use numbers like computers do.
A.i. systems are statistical probability formulas. They do use numbers. They are in many ways a fancy search engine. That’s not what organic systems are. We don’t even use mathematical probability.
I already knew all that, and none of it explains whence this “mental dimension” of subjective experience comes. You’ve explained the maths and chemistry of the computations, but not the science of feeling. Where are our thoughts? How can a physical process give rise to a mental process?
I’m starting to think you’re as clueless about the hard problem of consciousness as the world’s bleeding edge neuroscientists, who also don’t know.
Yeah that’s the hard problem I gave you a link to.
There are multiple theories. Some listed on wiki.
A problem is defining what consciousness even is. Like a specific measurable construct. Not a vague abstract idea.
And depending on your answer, will result in a different theory on what it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Also the “binding problem” is related to this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem
Just because it’s not fully understood doesn’t mean that a mystical magical explanation is true.
But I can assure you it’s not based on mathematical probability formulas.
Otherwise SPSS would have gained sentience 30 years ago.
Awareness is a product of the organic structure and processes of nerve tissue because that’s what all brain functions are a product of.
I personally ascribe to the theory that understanding of a self is a product of sensory processing as it’s imperative for an organism to understand it’s different and independent from its environment to interact with it.
But maybe that’s not your definition of consciousness.
If instead your definition is more about quali , then the binding problem is more akin to your question.
The binding problem is complex. And our lack of understanding how it works is why we can’t program a computer to have it.
But binding sensory information together to create a cohesive “picture of reality” is not my definition of consciousness.
But it could be yours.
My definition is the “sense of self as independent from environment”.
Because people with brain damage that impairs “binding” does not take away a sense of self. So to me, the sensory binding isn’t required to consciousness. Consciousness exists without it.
There are other resources than Wikipedia on both these concepts I describe.
Whole books written about them.
But now you know the terms so you can find additional resources. I honestly can’t sum up the entirety of that information better than I Already have without writing you an essay.
Just check out the wiki.
The theories start under the philosophical section of the hard problem page.
That’s a fallacy. Humans do things they don’t understand all the time. Humans have been working with complex organic molecules for thousands of years. Humans started using CO2 to change the climate before they understood it. Humans made airplanes before they understood the aerodynamics of an aerofoil. Humans used genetics to engineer an entirely new species, dogs, before they knew what DNA is. And human scientists spent hundreds of years thinking dogs have no feelings because dogs can’t talk. Humans are always doing stuff they don’t understand.
Your entire argument boils down to “I dunno why neural networks produce qualia, and therefore there’s absolutely zero chance our artificial neural networks produce qualia.”
How can a human program a computer to create quali if we don’t know how quali is created ?
This is not the same thing as using tools in our environment that we don’t fully understand how they work.
The structure of a neural network, in terms of how it mathematically produces qualia, is a tool in our environment we don’t fully understand. We don’t know why neurons in this particular shape produce qualia.
And then we made artificial neurons and tried putting them in similar shapes. Some parts are different, some parts are the same. LLMs definitely share our language skills and produce language the same way our Wernicke’s area does. But they definitely don’t have the same critical thinking skills. So clearly we copied some functions of the brain, but not all of them.
We don’t know if we copied qualia.
So the definition of consciousness is stimulus-response that doesn’t use numbers?
No. That’s the definition of a fap. Fixed action pattern.
Aka “Instincts”.
I see. So consciousness is definitionally uniquely human because of complexity, and other complex stimulus-response is simply instinct.