Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

yickth t1_j87w4vf wrote

Reply to comment by __ingeniare__ in Scientists Made a Mind-Bending Discovery About How AI Actually Works | "The concept is easier to understand if you imagine it as a Matryoshka-esque computer-inside-a-computer scenario." by Tao_Dragon

Brains employ universal computation, as computers. What’s the difference?

2

__ingeniare__ t1_j880eru wrote

The difference is the computing architecture. Obviously you can't just scale any computing system and have theory of mind appear as an emergent property, the computations need to have a pattern that allows it.

1

yickth t1_j89fjnu wrote

Incorrect about scaling computers, which is what computers do — scale. They are universal. As for consciousness, we’re not sure it’s not embedded in everything (panpsychism). I accept this may not be accepted, and perhaps impossible to prove, at least in our lifetimes, but brains are computers, and as such, are scaleable

2

__ingeniare__ t1_j8b8y1b wrote

I said that you can't have theory of mind appear from scaling just any compute system, not that you can't scale it.

2

yickth t1_j8bx0py wrote

Why not? I’m not trying to be argumentative, rather I’m genuinely curious why this is impossible

2

__ingeniare__ t1_j8c0bbz wrote

Let's say you have a computer that simply adds two large numbers. You can scale it indefinitely to add even larger numbers, but it will never do anything interesting beyond that because it's not a complex system. Computation in itself does not necessarily lead to emergent properties, it is the structure of the information processing that dictates this.

2

yickth t1_j8c2aba wrote

Ah, but computation is scaleable, universally. No other system is. Our minds emerged from computation. And thank you for your thoughtful response

2

__ingeniare__ t1_j8c4z0x wrote

I think we have different definitions of scalable then. Our minds emerged from computation under the evolutionary pressure to form certain information processing patterns, so it isn't just any computation. Just so I understand you correctly, are you claiming an arbitrary computational system would inevitably lead to theory of mind and other emergent properties by simply scaling it (in other words, adding more compute units like neurons or transistors)?

2

yickth t1_j8hexi1 wrote

No, I’m not claiming X will lead to Y; I’m claiming it isn’t impossible. Also, we aren’t sure what consciousness is or where it’s located outside our own understanding, so how and if it arose is a mystery

1