A lot of people argue about whether AI is conscious or not. Whether AI is sentient or not. These discussions are meaningless.
We don't have a definition for consciousness. Don't believe me? Ask a group of nerds. You'll see.
Is AI sentient? Well, how do you judge sentience? Let me guess. "Sentience is the capacity of a being to experience feelings and sensations."
Is AI sentient? Well, how do you judge whether something is sentient?
Let me guess. You judge sentience anthropomorphically. You judge what can be conscious based on a consciousness that's a product of the body you inhabit. The way you think and feel is affected by the fact that you think and feel IN A BODY. WITH ARMS. AND LEGS. AND A CHEST.
DO YOU SEE WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS?
We judge consciousness and sentience anthropomorphically. We judge whether AI can achieve consciousness and sentience based on our meat body four limb experience of sentience and consciousness.
And that's stupid. And it's egotistical. It attempts to judge AI in our own image.
Did you know we hire in our own image? It's true.
We hire people who remind us of ourselves. And that's how we judge AI.
We judge AI's sentience and consciousness based on our own image.
And that's fucking stupid.
Maybe the universe is stranger than we can suppose.
- Hitchens