[Allen Tice]

Language producing machines are now at a high level of sophistication. We are a language sensitive group. This link leads to a series of inputs and replies from “Emerson” (scroll down), which is downloadable. My reading of Emerson’s style reminds me of some interactions on Eratosphere. Anyway, where do we draw the line between ornate articulated echoes and actual people thought? What do some of us think?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/1289...e-bigger-point

[John Isbell]

Google just suspended an engineer who claims its AI has become sentient.

Cheers,
John

[Roger Slater]

John, Google says they suspended him for violating the company's confidentiality policy.

The question of when (if ever) a computer can be said to be "sentient" isn't an easy one to answer, since even if they built a computer that could engage in conversation on the level of a typical human being, and even if the computer could be programmed to assert that it was experiencing feelings and emotions, how could we ever really know what the computer was actually experiencing internally?

[W T Clark]

There's a theory that the ai itself sent the email under the employees' name to get the employee fired before he could shut it down. An example of the ai thinking five steps ahead. But then again, it didn't work, since we are now theorising about it doing so. Unless it started the rumour itself. You just never know how far ahead these ais are.
This article outlines my thoughts on ai-written poetry:
https://thewalrus.ca/ai-poetry/

Originally Posted by John Isbell

Google just suspended an engineer who claims its AI has become sentient.

Cheers,
John

[Allen Tice]

I zipped through that long article, and will return at my convenience (wherever my convenience is installed with good plumbing at the time). What I found interesting in the Emerson selection in my first post was its anti-Turing feel: that it reminded me of some real screen language interactions between real people here, not the other way around. That is, some posts have read like they were composed by a glib software routine. I won't name names of course.

[John Isbell]

Let's just put the Turing test in this discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

Years ago, I saw Derek Jacobi play Alan Turing in Breaking the Code. One of the best play performances I've ever seen.

Cheers,
John

Oh - Roger, maybe the breaking confidentiality was revealing that their AI is sentient. :-)

[Allen Tice]

On Turing test believability.

When and if an algorithm can write persuasive English about eating a frozen yogurt desert, falling in love, staying there, eating a gourmet meal with every trimming, begetting, getting a haircut, platonic affection, having a beer, or numerous other sensuous sensory scenarios, one must wonder also about what goes on when an actor or actress is doing a live performance (analog of course): can one actually know what she (or he) feels in reality?

Isaac Asimov, who wrote a lot about robots before our present “Emerson”, wrote somewhere I do think, that he thought his wife might be a robot. I’d want a solid reference for that, but assuming its truth, even as a joke, she would have to have been analog and carbon-based, as they say. Right now, after having had a good supper, I’m feeling positive about being analog and carbon-based. This is for the record.

[Roger Slater]

But Allen, why would even a sentient computer want to talk about the experiences of a typical human being? Can you write persuasive English about what it's like to calculate pi to the millionth decimal place? So why should a computer be able to talk persuasively about eating frozen yogurt?

[John Isbell]

We've always assumed that computers would want to be like humans. But why, say, would they not want to be like cats?

Cheers,
John

[Jim Moonan]

.
(He tiptoe's in, shoulders up, looking all Woody Allenish.)
Excuse me, but all this talk of AI being sentient. Are we mincing meanings?

(Getting their attention, going another step further)
It's abstraction within subtraction if you ask me. Of course no one did and likely never will and I can understand why. But can any evidence of imagination be extracted from it? This sentient entity? Any intelligent being can answer a question. But can it live without them? Answers, I mean.

(He lifts his foot and bends down toward it in an awkward yoga-like pose.)
Where's the soul? I'm dying to ask it. Show me your soul.

(He exits, gagging on the leather upper of his right shoe.)
.