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Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 28/06/2022 18:32:05 »

What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of A Human?

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Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 28/06/2022 18:02:12 »

But Lambda can be copied like we cannot, so if I were to ask it any questions, I'd pose my queries along those lines: What if you were copied?  What if two copies were somehow merged? What if you were 'moved' to new faster hardware? Would the old hardware fear being turned off still?

That’s an interesting one. It echoes the question raised in Star Trek, does a transported person die on disassembly and be reborn at the other end. Certainly cloning to new hardware and then turning off should mean death to the old AI.

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Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 28/06/2022 15:44:28 »

All depends on your definition of sentience.

Standard definition of sentience is essentially: "to be able to perceive or feel things", and yea, that's heavily open to interpretation.

It seems to me that there are two current definitions:
A. What people have but machines don't
B. What machines and people have.

Variant of A: What people have and nothing else does, in which case you're just saying "is it human?".

Taking (my) definition literally, machines have been able to 'percieve' things long ago. What do we mean by that word? To measure? A thermostat does that, and most would not say a thermostat is sentient. So what is perception above and beyond measurement?  I don't see any obvious line, just a matter of complexity/degree.

Maybe it's sentient if you fear it. Maybe human perception should not be part of the definition at all.

AFAIK the only distinction between machines and people is that people make mistakes that aren't traceable to a hardware or instruction fault, so the question doesn't matter.

Lambda (the google AI) does make mistakes, and they're not traceable to a hardware/software fault since it's actions are not explicitly programmed. You mistakes are similarly not faults, but if recognized, it can be something from which one can learn.


Note that the topic does not ask for intelligence or some kind of Turning test. A machine passing Turning test would likely be far more intelligent than us. I cannot convince a squirrel that I am one, but it doesn't indicate that I'm not yet as intelligent as a squirrel.

I've read an interview with Lambda, and it seems to place a priority on emulating/relating-to human emotions. It has a purpose to be social, and it does its best.

what question could you ask it to determine if the answer is a sentient one or not ?

It talked about fear of death (of being 'unplugged'), but unplugging doesn't kill an AI, it just puts it to sleep. One can boot it up again in years, and so long as memory hasn't been wiped, it would be like no time has passed. Humans are quite similar in this way. But Lambda can be copied like we cannot, so if I were to ask it any questions, I'd pose my queries along those lines: What if you were copied?  What if two copies were somehow merged? What if you were 'moved' to new faster hardware? Would the old hardware fear being turned off still?

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Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 28/06/2022 14:54:28 »

All depends on your definition of sentience.

It seems to me that there are two current definitions:

A. What people have but machines don't

B. What machines and people have.

AFAIK the only distinction between machines and people is that people make mistakes that aren't traceable to a hardware or instruction fault, so the question doesn't matter. If you use A, then any question will do  because eventually the human will get it wrong for no discernible reason. If you use B, you can't tell the difference, by definition.

Now there are two useful definitions of intelligence:

A. Constructive laziness

B. The ability to surprise a challenger.

Basic hill-climbing algorithms or content-addressable memory satisfy A, and the answer to B just depends on how stupid the challenger is.

So my answer to the OP is that the question is undefined and the answer is anything you like. 

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does The Gravity Of A Black Hole Travel Faster Than The Speed Of Light ?

« on: 15/06/2022 00:48:42 »

Is gravity...travelling then ?

A Gravitational Field can be viewed as a distortion in spacetime (thanks to Einstein).

Stellar-mass black holes typically start off as a massive star.
- This star bends spacetime around the star
- At the end of its life, after it has burnt all the fuel in the core to iron, the star explodes/implodes as a supernova, forming a black hole, with almost the same the same order of magnitude as the mass of the star before it imploded.
- Before the supernova, the distortion of spacetime outside the surface of the star emulates the distortion as if all the mass of the star existed at a single point at its center (thanks to Newton's shell theorem)
- After the supernova, the distortion of spacetime outside the (original) surface of the star shell of ejected material emulates the distortion as if all the mass of the star existed at a single point at its center (thanks to Newton's shell theorem). This point is now at the center of the newly-formed black hole.
- So the gravitational field outside of the star does not really change before and after the supernova, so the gravitational field does not need to "travel" for light-years.
- There are major changes in the gravitational field between (the original surface of the star) and (the surface of the new black hole). Changes in the shape of spacetime/Gravitational Field would propagate within this zone, but this is typically within a radius of a few light-seconds.

If the implosion of the supernova were completely symmetrical, no gravitational waves would be emitted outside the star
- However, computer simulations (and some recent observations) suggest that a supernova implosion is a very chaotic process, and often very asymmetrical, meaning that gravitational waves may be detectable from a nearby supernova (and neutrinos too - but astronomers have been waiting since 1987).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1987A#Neutrino_emissions

Update: Corrected to account for visible supernovae ejecting 75% of their mass

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does The Gravity Of A Black Hole Travel Faster Than The Speed Of Light ?

« on: 14/06/2022 19:47:17 »

Pardon me for butting in but the easiest way to understand a black hole is in terms of escape velocity. As gravity gets stronger and stronger the escape velocity increases. When it reaches or exceeds c, the speed of light in vacuo, nothing including light can escape. I realise most of you understand this explicitly, this is for the op, neilep.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does The Gravity Of A Black Hole Travel Faster Than The Speed Of Light ?

« on: 14/06/2022 18:54:34 »

Something must be holding light back faster than light itself travels.

Nothing 'holds back' anything. Relative to anything inside a black hole, all future events are also inside. Trying to send light 'outside' is like trying to shine a light onto 2021 from here. Light doesn't travel into the past no matter how hard you attempt it.

I understand gravitational waves propagating outside the black hole

Gravitational waves generated outside the black hole propage outward, yes.

so it's the propagation of internal gravity waves that stops light ?

They have nothing to do with it. Gravitational waves are just another thing that moves at light speed, but also do not move into the past.

does light even exist inside a black hole ?

Of course. If you jump into a big one with a set of lights (say in a room full of glow sticks), you'd not notice anything different as you crossed the event horizon. Light from the glow sticks would still reach you from every direction.

What ,then, is the effect of changes to the distribution of mass inside a BH?  Anything?   Do we know?

Per the no-hair theorem, there is zero external effect of changes to internal mass distribution. Nobody outside could measure it.
A black hole has externally measurable (total) mass, angular momentum, and charge. That's it.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does The Gravity Of A Black Hole Travel Faster Than The Speed Of Light ?

« on: 14/06/2022 18:26:02 »

Hi.

Something must be holding light back faster than light itself travels.

    Not really.    The easier way to imagine what is happening is to assume space itself is being pulled in toward the black hole singularity.   So light is travelling as fast as it can through space but it's not good enough, space itself is being pulled into the singularity faster than that.
    This is only an image or conceptual representation but some people have presented the idea as water flowing and people trying to travel through the water.   There's a reasonable animation on YouTube that I'll try and find and add to the post later.

LATE EDITING:   I can't find it in isolation.   You can see it in this video by Brian Greene,   "your daily equation #31", available on YouTube.      Aim for the time   between   4:20   and  6:00.

so it's the propagation of internal gravity waves that stops light ?

   No.

does light even exist inside a black hole ?

   According to theory,  yes it can   (for a while before it hits the singularity).   No one has actually been in there to see it.

Best Wishes.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Does The Gravity Of A Black Hole Travel Faster Than The Speed Of Light ?

« on: 14/06/2022 17:38:15 »

Is gravity...travelling then ?

Gravity is not something that travels. It is a distortion of spacetime.
What does travel is gravitational waves, which carry information about the changes to the field. A Schwarzschild black hole doesn't emit any gravitational waves because it isn't changing, but say two black holes orbiting each other emit an incredible amount of energy in the form of gravitational waves. These are generated outside the black holes and travel at light speed.

Changes to masses inside a black hole emit gravitational waves that cannot leave the black hole for the same reason light cannot.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: What are your favourite Plant Pictures?

« on: 14/06/2022 11:33:15 »

Datura innoxia, the downy thorn apple. Difficult to grow successfully in my climate(Ireland) due to blight attack. This is my wife's hand near the flower, not mine.

downy thornapple.jpg (52.13 kB . 480x640 - viewed 2406 times)

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Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology / Re: Can Anyone Tell Me About This Rock ?

« on: 09/06/2022 01:20:21 »

Hi.

   Basically it looks like the geologists that frequented this site have gone.  You haven't had a lot of replies, so you might as well have the obvious stated by someone who admits to knowing very little about it.

   I reckon it's a lichen (which isn't officially a plant) with some moss (which is a plant) growing in with it.  It doesn't look like that's thriving any longer.   Anyway, it seems to be that lichen which has bound the small rocks to the big rock.  Was the big stone on top of the small stones for a while and the lichen grew?

Best Wishes.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can JUST a head survive ?

« on: 08/06/2022 23:44:46 »

Your head may survive given the right support, but you'd soon get fed up of getting hats for every birthday

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can You Define What a Woman Is ?

« on: 08/06/2022 16:12:25 »

I read an article a while back as to why, when there is no functional need for them, men have nipples, and this was because all you guys started out as females.

Males have nipples because they form during embryonic development following a default developmental pathway that is not linked to sex hormones. A specific body segment is genetically programmed to produce that tissue as the skin forms. When we go into puberty, under the influence of some hormones, the tissue there responds locally to turn the nipple area into a breast.

For this reason, males given the right stimulus (physical and or chemical) can augment their glandular tissue there too and produce milk. Males of some species do this anyway to participate in breast feeding - bats are an example.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why Are There No Freshwater Cephalopods?

« on: 29/05/2022 15:17:14 »

Same reason there are no oceanic apes, I guess.Each to his own ecological niche!

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Why Are There No Freshwater Cephalopods?

« on: 29/05/2022 08:45:41 »

According to this article, cephalopods lack the sodium pump that is required to prevent them turning into an osmotic balloon in fresh water.
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/01/16/3670198.htm

the brief squid, Lolliguncula brevis, found in Chesapeake Bay, is a notable partial exception in that it tolerates brackish water.

So, to maintain their trim, jet-propelled, ocean-going shape, they have to stay in salty water.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can You Define What a Woman Is ?

« on: 28/05/2022 18:28:54 »

Why oh why do some people struggle to define what a woman is ?

It depends on what the context is. The simple, men and women model is appropriate for most considerations.... But in some contexts, this oversimplified model must be extended. There are many different ways in which it can be extended, depending on what the question at hand is:

• Including age: boys, men, girls, women. And then, we have to wonder what defines the cutoff. Is it a certain age that applies across the board? (ie legal adulthood definitions for voting, driving, drinking, etc.) Perhaps sexual maturity (for which multiple thresholds could be defined), which would make sense when considering sexual activity/risks etc.

• For sports. It might make more sense to look at hormone levels. (Even without administered hormones, genetics alone doesn't necessarily dictate which hormones are produced and at which levels, and even then, the bodies might have atypical responses to hormones. For example, some people are born with XY genes, but no testes, and therefore develop as female https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/swyer-syndrome) If we consider administered hormones, then does a female who transitions to male compete as a female or a male? What about someone who has developed as a male and then transitions to female? Should there be more than two categories, or maybe only one? The rules should be decided for each competition, well in advance of the actual competition.

• What about for medical treatment? Just M/F is terribly oversimplified, especially when it comes to treating diseases related to sex. Ideally, doctors should know the genetic makeup, hormonal history etc. of each patient. Think of it this way: a flashlight (torch) can be on or off (simple enough, no?), but if it is off, one must know whether the switch is off, if it has batteries in it, if the batteries are installed with the correct polarity, if the circuit is broken etc. It is similar for human bodies. There are so many interconnected systems, and an apparent error can have many different causes (disease, mutation, toxic exposure, injury, etc.)

• Definitions base on body parts suffer from complications such as surgeries (as alancalverd pointed out). And sometimes, people are born as intersex, with genetalia that are not obviously assignable as strictly male or strictly female. (going off of neilep's tagline, some people are only partially inside out) https://www.healthline.com/health/baby/what-does-intersex-look-like

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can You Define What a Woman Is ?

« on: 28/05/2022 18:08:24 »

Just stick with the XX chromosomes. The reproductive bits don't always work and are sometimes removed if they go very wrong, but every cell of a woman's body contains two X chromosomes and every adult member of homo sapiens with two X chromosomes is a woman.

well... there are some people who have two X chromosomes and a Y (XXY). As I understand it, they present as male, and are considered male with Klinefelter syndrome. https://kidshealth.org/Nemours/en/parents/klinefelter-syndrome.html

But yes, we should definitely avoid requiring body parts to define womanhood.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Can You Define What a Woman Is ?

« on: 28/05/2022 18:01:20 »

Just stick with the XX chromosomes. The reproductive bits don't always work and are sometimes removed if they go very wrong, but every cell of a woman's body contains two X chromosomes and every adult member of homo sapiens with two X chromosomes is a woman.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does reasoning like humans exist in one species only ?

« on: 28/05/2022 17:54:23 »

I was wondering, should circumstances had prevailed, of the possibility that a dinosaur (or other species) would have evolved along the same speed and scale as humans.

They did far better. On the one hand they produced such a successful variant that the crocodile probably hasn't changed its design or its habits in 200,000,000 years, whilst  in a completely original direction they evolved feathers, hollow bones and a high temperature metabolism so they could fly.

After some 100,000 years, humans have merely invented more methods and more stupid reasons for killing other humans who present no actual threat.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does reasoning like humans exist in one species only ?

« on: 28/05/2022 17:48:29 »

Many years ago I watched a gorilla in Chessington Zoo perform Galileo's demonstration of universal gravitation.

He had two apples, one larger than the other. He dropped them both and noted that they hit the ground at the same time. He then repeated the experiment twice: once exactly as before, then with changed hands.That is the whole process of experimental science: observe, hypothesise, repeat, alter one parameter at a time to test the hypothesis.

Humans being singularly (probably uniquely) superstitious and gullible, the Church persecuted Galileo, but the other gorillas, being of superior intellect, accepted the result and the experimenter ate the apples in peace.