[not on the LTFF and also not speaking for Open Phil, just giving a personal take]
A few reactions:
Which AI systems are conscious seems like a good candidate for an extremely important humanity will need to solve at some point.
studying current systems, especially in terms of seeing what philosophical theories of consciousness have to say about them, seems like a reasonable bet to make right now if you’re excited about this problem being solved at some point.
To the extent you want to bet on a person to help push this field forward, Rob seems like an excellent bet.
On why the question seems important:
Being wrong about which systems are conscious seems dangerous in both directions:
Falsely believing systems are conscious could lead to enormous waste (trying to improve the well-being of such systems).
AI systems advocating for their own rights is a plausible way by which they could gain influence over some humans, given that at least one case of this has already happened.
Not treating genuinely conscious systems as being worthy of moral consideration on the other hand, seems like a good candidate for causing a moral catastrophe of potentially astronomical scale.
[not on the LTFF and also not speaking for Open Phil, just giving a personal take]
A few reactions:
Which AI systems are conscious seems like a good candidate for an extremely important humanity will need to solve at some point.
studying current systems, especially in terms of seeing what philosophical theories of consciousness have to say about them, seems like a reasonable bet to make right now if you’re excited about this problem being solved at some point.
To the extent you want to bet on a person to help push this field forward, Rob seems like an excellent bet.
On why the question seems important:
Being wrong about which systems are conscious seems dangerous in both directions:
Falsely believing systems are conscious could lead to enormous waste (trying to improve the well-being of such systems).
AI systems advocating for their own rights is a plausible way by which they could gain influence over some humans, given that at least one case of this has already happened.
Not treating genuinely conscious systems as being worthy of moral consideration on the other hand, seems like a good candidate for causing a moral catastrophe of potentially astronomical scale.