I definitely agree and am grateful for your opinion. I am not interested in consciousness research, but do believe there is tractability into the idea of AIs causing digital-mind suffering without attempting to solve the consciousness debate.
Our current work in this space is on measuring whether AIs take the possibility of consciousness seriously (without being overconfident in one direction or another). So we’re measuring observable behaviors of giving statements and actions inconsistent with believing that AI welfare is clearly impossible or that current AIs are definitely conscious. I agree that current methods can provide at best weak and heavily debatable findings (for the reasons the linked post articulates), though I think that’s importantly different from precisely zero evidence.
In science it’s usually a good instinct to dismiss something this unclear, but there are two issues with that in this case (and some others): First, the issue is enormously important if true. Second, the philosophical difficulty of artificial consciousness means that our current confusion doesn’t provide Bayesian evidence either way: we’d expect ourselves to have basically these opinions in worlds where artificial consciousness is the default and also worlds where it’s impossible.
Progress may be possible, but CaML doesn’t have the technical background to make progress on determining how consciousness works, so we leave that to others.
I definitely agree and am grateful for your opinion. I am not interested in consciousness research, but do believe there is tractability into the idea of AIs causing digital-mind suffering without attempting to solve the consciousness debate.
There’s since been a post articulating similar concerns to my own but in much better words. Interested to see what you think of it.
Our current work in this space is on measuring whether AIs take the possibility of consciousness seriously (without being overconfident in one direction or another). So we’re measuring observable behaviors of giving statements and actions inconsistent with believing that AI welfare is clearly impossible or that current AIs are definitely conscious. I agree that current methods can provide at best weak and heavily debatable findings (for the reasons the linked post articulates), though I think that’s importantly different from precisely zero evidence.
In science it’s usually a good instinct to dismiss something this unclear, but there are two issues with that in this case (and some others): First, the issue is enormously important if true. Second, the philosophical difficulty of artificial consciousness means that our current confusion doesn’t provide Bayesian evidence either way: we’d expect ourselves to have basically these opinions in worlds where artificial consciousness is the default and also worlds where it’s impossible.
Hi Jasmine. Why are you not interested in consciousness research? Because you do not think progress is possible?
Progress may be possible, but CaML doesn’t have the technical background to make progress on determining how consciousness works, so we leave that to others.
I see. That makes sense. I was thinking you were not interested in consciousness research more broadly.