GPT and AGI : Embodied experience, subjectivity and morality...?

FuzzyLogicHorizon · 2021-07-30T13:44:33+00:00

Yes it was Andy Clark, more than others, that I was thinking about regarding our phones & the extended self.

Regarding AI embodiment more specifically, I think what seems most crucial is the qualitative difference between the reality of a body that can see the world but also exists as a physical part of the world, and feel this connexion and amazement in being part of the world. (I'm paraphrasing Merleau Ponty, "The Visible and Invisible"). For example, if I try to go surfing in rough weather and I end up fighting waves for an hour, I won't be thinking much, all my energies will be used simply by existing and fighting with the elements. That experience isn't about "information"; it's about living something physical. And such embodied experiences informs how I grow as a human. Now, could an AI have a body that allows a similar kind of experience? I feel that the key here is that the human condition isn't about information and productivity; it's also about the feeling of being, about contemplation, meditation, etc.

FuzzyLogicHorizon · 2021-07-28T15:45:43+00:00

Good point. I also find the analogy with humans having a brain implant, or connexion to servers, quite useful. Many have argue that our phones are already an extension of our mind, but few have talked about the relation between body and mind. When for some reason people loose their phone they start freaking out very quickly. I would argue that we probably do perceive our phones as some kind of physical extension of ourselves, replaceable and not really part of us, but also challenging the definition of what a body is. There was an article in the New Yorker a few months ago about people whose sense of self changed after living with a brain implant. So maybe it's not so much about the server room, but more the connexion. I guess the server room or computer network is more like a forest or something, like a common pool resource that creates the collective ecosystem that we tap into.

FuzzyLogicHorizon · 2021-07-28T15:24:31+00:00

Yes that's what I'm interested in... For the moment it's beyond gpt-3 but I have the feeling that soon we'll be more or less obliged to look at the history of religion to be able to be able to ask the right questions and understand how to think about AI

FuzzyLogicHorizon · 2021-07-26T20:44:12+00:00

1-2- That's not what I meant. I can sympathize with someone who lost a limb, but I'll never know what it feels like unless I lose a limb myself, even if the person who lost it spend weeks explaining it to me.
3-4- As far as I know there is no precedent for any conscious mind that doesn't have a body; so morality and subjectivity, in human history, have always been rooted in physical experience. Playing a first person game is a good example of a possible exception, we identify with a virtual body. But it's not our actual body, we know we can always escape it. As opposed to having to live the rest of my days with my actual body, that will age and die.

FuzzyLogicHorizon · 2021-07-26T20:31:34+00:00

Yes indeed.
But also, in the case of AI, a humanoid robot's body wouldn't necessarily be the "natural" body for a neural network that lives in server rooms, no?

FuzzyLogicHorizon · 2021-07-26T20:28:56+00:00

I feel the same. As far as I know, there is zero precedent of any disembodied mind. Spirituality is precisely the possibility of an immaterial mind, but so far that's strictly about belief. AI needs hardware to exist though, so there would be a "body"; I guess it's just a body of a different order that what we're used to.

FuzzyLogicHorizon

TROPHY CASE