3 Reasons Why AI Isn’t Anywhere Close to Consciousness

Author(s): Rafe Brena, Ph.D.

Originally published on Towards AI.

“Is there a soul inside?”

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I cringe every time I read the word “consciousness” in the same phrase as “Artificial Intelligence.”

This may look like a very particular phobia, but I didn’t have this phobia a few years ago (more precisely, before 2022 when ChatGPT went out). It all started with a few and then a deluge of YouTube videos, articles, comments, or questions implying that AI will be conscious next year or so.

But what is “consciousness,” anyway? It’s in a way similar to awareness (at least, according to the dictionary) as well as “sentience,” but the way that word is used suggests it’s more properly human than awareness and sentience. I argue in the following that it’s more an experience than an ability, with profound consequences.

One of the problems I see with people talking about consciousness in machines is that, in most cases, the idea comes from anthropomorphizing (defined as the act of attributing human qualities to things and animals) machines and also AI. It goes as follows:

Humans are more intelligent than animals, aren’t they?We are way more conscious than animals,So, consciousness comes with intelligence.

It is not hard to… Read the full blog for free on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI