Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aipna!cam From: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Definition of (was Re: Testing for []) consciousness Message-ID: <3374@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 26 Oct 90 01:53:08 GMT References: <27608@usc.edu> <1990Oct22.150143.13858@canon.co.uk> <3331@aipna.ed.ac.uk> <1990Oct25.085556.12119@canon.co.uk> Reply-To: cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) Organization: Dept of AI, Edinburgh University, UK. Lines: 100 In article <1990Oct25.085556.12119@canon.co.uk> rjf@canon.co.uk writes: >In article <3331@aipna.ed.ac.uk> cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes: >>In article <1990Oct22.150143.13858@canon.co.uk> rjf@canon.co.uk writes: >>>I'd like to suggest that something be ascribed consciousness iff it can >>>be the subject of experience: iff it is like something to be that >>>thing. (This is lifted from T Nagel, >>Now I don't wish to start an argument about the ideas of Jaynes or >>Humphrey, nor am I here supporting their ideas. What I do wish to >>suggest is, like the poster who pointed out the etymology of the word >>"conscious" ("knowing with", i.e. shared knowledge), that maybe >>consciousness is primarily a *social* psychological phenomenon, a >>cultural phenomenon, and that trying to seek its roots purely *inside* >>your own particular mind might be as silly and misguided as trying to >>put it into the mind of a machine. >But I couldn't agree more! >The point of the "its like something to be the conscious thing" >definition (which I previously failed to make clear) is that it brings >out the fact that ascribing consciousness is essentially equivalent to >being willing to identify with the thing concerned -- to put oneself in >its shoes. You know the story of the Indestructible Robot? The roboticist bet his friend the physicist that he could make an indestructible robot. The day came when the sceptical physicist was invited into the lab to meet the allegedly indestructible robot -- and to try to destroy it. Physicist: What? That little furry thing? Roboticist: Here's a hammer. Smash it! The physicist raises the hammer above his head -- and the little furry robot turns over on its back and squeals piteously. The physicist struggles a bit with bringing the hammer down, but whenever he makes a threatening move the creature squeals more loudly, higher, and more urgently. He knows it is "only a machine", but a million years of evolution wrench his heart, start tears to his eyes, and unman his resolution. He can't bring himself to to murder this defenceless and submissive baby thing. He drops the hammer, admits defeat. >So the question "can we ever build a conscious machine" is functionally >equivalent to the question "can we ever build a machine with which >people are willing to socialise". Yes, I think you're right. Of course, you know the story about Weizenbaum's secretary and Eliza? She knew perfectly well that "Eliza" was just a trick, an automated phrase-book, yet Weizenbaum was startled and dismayed to find that she actually wished to "talk" to Eliza in *private* -- about some of her personal problems. He drew some heavy morals about the philosophical immaturity of the human race from this, suggesting that we were too gullible and naive to play safely with such dangerously suggestive toys as AI could build. I think he made much too much of a meal of a perfectly simple and straightforward social relationship between a woman and a machine. I don't think she was at all gullible or naive. She was perfectly well aware of the nature of Eliza. But with a common-sense female pragmatism which horrified Weizenbaum's delicate theological sentiments (which like many rationalist sceptics he disguised as philosophy) she saw no reason why the creature's mechanical nature should stand in the way of a useful relationship. She realised -- as W. did not -- that intelligence, consciousness, and all the rest, are, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. I think she was married, which probably helped. This puts a new light on the Turing test, too: we should not be struggling to build a machine that will confuse a misguided sophist about whether or not it has certain properties (which the sophist mistakenly supposes to *justify* the ascription of varieties of mentality); rather we should be trying to build machines with which people can have useful relationships -- a much simpler task. Eliza was intended to imitate the determinedly unoriginal behaviour of a Rogerian therapist. We could do far better now. How about an Artificial Astrologer? I don't mean the kind of fortune cookie program that newspapers run, I mean a proper professional astrological consultant. Such behaviour is within the scope of modern understanding of expert behaviour, computable celestial mechanics, and natural language generation. A suitable project for an ambitious and capable post-grad team, and is very well documented in the sort of books which paranoid scientists (fearfully looking over their shoulder at Freud's "black tide of occultism") are too scared to read in case they are tarred with the contagion of the irrational. [That's one of the reasons it would have to be a student project.] I'm sure the Artificial Astrologer would be both more attractive to the socially pragmatic, and even more distressing to those suffering from philosophy, than ever Eliza was. The distress is important: it guarantees that the project is usefully trespassing on those cherished notions which have confused the cognitive sciences for so many thousands of years. You think I'm joking? Alas, I fear that's what the funding agencies will think too... -- Chris Malcolm cam@uk.ac.ed.aipna 031 667 1011 x2550 Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK