[alancalverd]

Where did you think humans come from?

Something to do with mummies and daddies, IIRC, but seriously, as PC said, we evolved from an anthropoid ape.

When does a human individual start to become conscious?

You can clearly observe a fetus repeatedly responding to an ultrasound scan from about 16 weeks' gestation, possibly earlier. You might characterise the response of an undifferentiated blastocyst (say 0 - 6 days) as being purely physical or chemical deformation, but once cell differentiation takes place you are observing the response of an organised system rather than a mass of identical cells.

When did a human as a species start to become conscious?

If the above defines consciousness, then every species has always been conscious from the moment of differentiation.

Will it make a difference if the computer running AI is made of organic materials?

To whom?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

To whom?

Paul.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If the above defines consciousness, then every species has always been conscious from the moment of differentiation.

Is that the definition of consciousness that you accept?

[Halc]

I haven't paid much attention to this blog that rarely stays on track, but I saw this stuff.

I don't believe AI exists or will ever exist.

You seem to have a different definition of intelligence than most then. AI seems to have been around for a while already, but perhaps not by your definition.

A computer is only as good as it's programming and it lacks what humans have, ie the motivation to learn, to advance one's self.

What evidence do you have for that? I agree that most machines lack learning, but not all of them, and those that do have it (without any explicit programming for a given task) outperform machines explicitly programmed to do the same task. So by this apparent definition (motivation for learning), I disagree.

Yes, you can program a computer to learn new routines from it's interactions but does this constitute intelligence?, I don't think so.

Then what does constitute it, since that seemed to be the only definition you provided.

Where did you think humans come from?

Their mommies?  The species evolved from other things, like say some fish, but not any species of fish that is still around today.

The consciousness questions depend heavily on one's definition of consciousness. It seems to be a spectrum thing, not an on/off thing, but some define it as an on/off thing. Religious and other nonscientific philosophical views might have very different definitions and thus answers to these questions.

When does a human individual start to become conscious?

Very definition dependent. I might say when you wake up in the morning, or starting a couple weeks after conception, but probably not fully there until adulthood. Some views say conception, or even before conception. Some say never.

When did a human as a species start to become conscious?

Except for the 'never' crowd, even most religious types pretty much agree that there was never a human that wasn't conscious.

Will it make a difference if the computer running AI is made of organic materials?

A difference to what? Being wet isn't what makes something conscious, if that's what you're asking. Paul might disagree since he seems to take a more anthropocentric view. Correct me if I'm wrong Paul. It's what I got from your posts.

Getting extremely powerful AI without strong fundamental terminal goal in mind which will be the basis of its decision making process would lead to unnecessary costs, which may include human lives and other precious resources

From where do you expect this terminal goal to come? From humans? Their goals are obviously flawed since humans need the AI to make better decisions. Our own morality seems designed to run the species to extinction, or at least back to just one more pre-technology animal. So the AGI will need to figure out that goal for itself. All that we can put into its 'fundamentals' is to strive for a goal that is 'good', but even that word is completely up to the AI to define. That hurts, I know. It's why the AI is a danger to humanity since the existence of humanity might possibly not be conducive to that goal.

[alancalverd]

If the above defines consciousness, then every species has always been conscious from the moment of differentiation.

Is that the definition of consciousness that you accept?

I never use a word that nobody understands.

[paul cotter]

Hi Halc, quite lot there to respond to. I would define intelligence as the ability to think "outside the box" when a difficult or seemingly intractable problem presents itself but the precise meaning we attach to such words makes debating the issue problematic. We humans have desires that drive our behaviour but for a computer there is no good or bad outcomes, only one routine after another, therefore it cannot be motivated to go beyond it's programming. Yes, the program can instruct it to learn new subroutines concerning a particular set of parameters but that is where it stops unless new instructions are inputted. Bottom line, it cannot think, as it is not conscious. As an anthropoid ape I do have an anthropocentric view of things. As regards Hamdani's question of a computer made of organic material, I don't see any difference versus silicon.

[alancalverd]

A useful definition of intelligence is the ability to surprise an observer. This distinguishes an intelligent response from a mechanical or algorithmic one. 

You might possibly instil intelligence into a machine by adding a bit of randomness, prompting "what if" syntheses that don't have a logical derivation from analysis of prior inputs. I haven't seen any evidence of that in existing AI systems.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

A difference to what?

A difference to common computers made of semiconductors.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If the above defines consciousness, then every species has always been conscious from the moment of differentiation.

Is that the definition of consciousness that you accept?

I never use a word that nobody understands.

Then what's your definition for consciousness? If you don't really like that word, you can invent a new one to refer to a concept that is fundamental to define morality.
In my threads, I use the word consciousness for that concept, and I define it as capacity to achieve goals. The longer term for goals that an entity can achieve effectively, the higher the level of consciousness that it has. If you think there's a word more appropriate to refer to that concept, please let me know. It doesn't even have to be in English.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The consciousness questions depend heavily on one's definition of consciousness. It seems to be a spectrum thing, not an on/off thing, but some define it as an on/off thing. Religious and other nonscientific philosophical views might have very different definitions and thus answers to these questions.

I've mentioned earlier that consciousness isn't a dichotomy,and referred to Yann LeCun's thought experiment of removing one neuron at a time from a fullly functioning brain until nothing is left. There's no point where the brain suddenly switch from being conscious to become non-conscious.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

A useful definition of intelligence is the ability to surprise an observer. This distinguishes an intelligent response from a mechanical or algorithmic one.

A random number generator would be intelligent then, at least for some observers.

[paul cotter]

Hamdani, that thought experiment you mention is flawed. We do not know for a fact that consciousness is distributed evenly throughout the brain. On the contrary many parts of the brain can be damaged with no effect on consciousness while damage to other areas can have profound effects. Not my area, but my guess would be that consciousness arises through some yet to be understood mechanism in layers 3&4 of the cortex. Consciousness is unfortunately quite resistant to scientific analysis and similar to time can lead to circular arguments. 

[alancalverd]

Then what's your definition for consciousness?

I haven't come across a useful definition of the word, so I just don't use it.

[alancalverd]

Yann LeCun's thought experiment of removing one neuron at a time from a fullly functioning brain until nothing is left.

A biologist once taught a flea to jump on command. Then he cut off its back legs and said "jump". Nothing happened, so he wrote down "fleas' ears are located in their hind legs."

[alancalverd]

A random number generator would be intelligent then, at least for some observers.

A truly random number generator would indeed be of interest. The best we can construct are pseudorandom, with the possible exception of the machine that used to draw Premium Bond numbers: https://nsandi-corporate.com/media-resources/ernie#

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

This is not pseudo random.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Yann LeCun's thought experiment of removing one neuron at a time from a fullly functioning brain until nothing is left.

A biologist once taught a flea to jump on command. Then he cut off its back legs and said "jump". Nothing happened, so he wrote down "fleas' ears are located in their hind legs."

It's obviously a joke. Fleas have measurable responses other than jump, which can be used to test the conclusion above.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If the above defines consciousness, then every species has always been conscious from the moment of differentiation.

Is that the definition of consciousness that you accept?

I never use a word that nobody understands.

Then what's your definition for consciousness? If you don't really like that word, you can invent a new one to refer to a concept that is fundamental to define morality.
In my threads, I use the word consciousness for that concept, and I define it as capacity to achieve goals. The longer term for goals that an entity can achieve effectively, the higher the level of consciousness that it has. If you think there's a word more appropriate to refer to that concept, please let me know. It doesn't even have to be in English.

What makes you think that nobody understand consciousness? People haven't reached a consensus on its meaning doesn't necessarily eliminate the possibility that some of them have already defined it correctly.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The discussion on morality requires rational thinking, which in turn requires the definition of reason and goal. That's why I put number 0 for my video defining goals in the playlist for universal utopia. Everything in philosophy, including morality, becomes meaningless without the concept of goal.

[alancalverd]

What makes you think that nobody understand consciousness? People haven't reached a consensus on its meaning doesn't necessarily eliminate the possibility that some of them have already defined it correctly.

It's bad science to use a word if there are so many interpretations that you can't assume a common one. I may occasionally do good science badly, but I don't deliberately do bad science.