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.
A word that is just nonsensical enough to mean whatever you want it to mean, while still sounding adequately serious enough for serious discussion among serious people.
See also: freedom.
Well you can define a construct.
In science we often use terms that are open. So we first define what we mean before discussing the construct.
That way everyone is talking about the same thing. Otherwise it’s just arguing semantics.
Okay. Consciousness is the awareness of the passage of time.
Perception of time is your definition of consciousness?
Do you instead mean memory of autobiographical events ?
Patient H.M lost his ability to form new memories of his experiences. (Starting after a brain surgery removed part of his memory centers as a kid). Would that count as losing “consciousness”?
People with dementia also lose their ability to form new memories. Though the complete loss of this ability is after the disease has progressed to severe levels.
People with Korsokoff disease. Sometimes called “locked in time” is also a disorder where new memory is disrupted so the individual often has no understanding that many years have passed. But they also suffer from a loss of time. Possibly because the amnesia is so extreme and complete.
This is why I say that time perception is part of memory.
People with Korsokoff are often distressed when they see their aged face in a mirror. Because to them, they have aged 20 years without experiencing the passage of 20 years.
Would you say these people are not conscious ?
You get why even defining consciousness is not particularly easy.
But we can’t develop explanations without a specific defined phenomenon that can be measured or identified in some way.
Nope. Just awareness that time passes. Memory is irrelevant.
How can you have awareness of time if you have no memory of 1 second ago?
Perception of time is part of memory that “now” is different than it was 1 second ago.
Time, as experienced by a human is a product of sensory processing and memory. Short term and working memory. There is bit of research on manipulating the perception of time by different tasks and events.
https://www.popsci.com/how-time-seems-to-stop/
It’s the experience of change.
This is why the speed of time can be altered based on tasks and attention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronostasis
Time , as defined by physics , is its own thing independent of an animal’s perception of time.
Like how vision is from light. But light is not vision.
We do have a circadian rhythm. So do all animals.
This is an internal clock that regulates the body.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm
Likewise , basic small time tracking appears to be largely done by the brain stem, limbic system, but probably the cerebellum. But not the cortex (higher function brain regions)
It is generally believed “consciousness” is a process of the cortex as this is where complex cognitive tasks are done.
“Experiments have shown that rats can successfully estimate a time interval of approximately 40 seconds, despite having their cortex entirely removed.[25] This suggests that time estimation may be a low-level process.[26]”
There is also a human disorder where the loss of time estimate ability can occur. Not completely independent of memory disorders. Short term memory is impaired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyschronometria