Can artificial intelligences suffer from mental illness?

Discussion in 'Intelligence & Machines' started by Plazma Inferno!, Aug 2, 2016.

  1. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    It's definitely something interesting to think on. The issue is, machines don't suffer anything. They are not capable of suffering. Suffering to varying degrees, can only be an attribute of a living organism, and even all living organisms aren't capable of suffering, or feeling anxiety or pain. So, that's why it seems like lots of wishful thinking, that a machine will be able to feel what humans feel.
     
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  3. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    Ah, but that is based on a false premise [or perhaps more circular logic]: Because the machines we understand can't feel anything, no machines could ever feel anything. If emotions and feelings can evolve in the most highly evolved organic life forms, from simpler life forms that don't have self awareness and feelings, then why couldn't machines do the same thing through human-driven evolution, if you will? Evolution is random. We can act with purpose.

    The simulation hypothesis assumes that brains can be simulated entirely. What is the difference between the electrochemistry in the brain, and simulated electrochemistry?
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2016
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  5. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    Personally, I hope my computer will soon be able to suffer. It has caused me no end of grief and paybacks a bitch!
     
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  7. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    Another favorite musing of mine: It is interesting given the context of the simulation hypothesis, that the solution to Maxwell's Demon paradox is that information is another form of energy. Or perhaps that energy is just a form of information?

    Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html#jCp
     
  8. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Machines are created by someone who has emotions, but those emotions and feelings can't be transferred, because machines are simply not living ''beings'' or organisms. If machines were to have feelings, and the ability to suffer, they'd cease being ''machines.''

    LOL!

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  9. kmguru Staff Member

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    Who is giving to whom? Who gave it to humans before the first FIRE?...just think...

    In spiritual context, all life forms have the same self-awareness (little ones and big ones). Machines would have to certain extent until the hardware moves from silicon to living systems. That means, they would know or we would know to get them there....then, they would be hundred percent self-aware and basically same as other living beings and grow like we are doing....

    All, we are doing is starting the process the same way the party that started our process...
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2016
  10. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Possibly, but that sounds scary. lol Be careful what we wish for. Even so, it could come close but machines will never be human. I like it that way.

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  11. kmguru Staff Member

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    You are correct...Machines would not be Human...but in say a 1000 years, those machines will become something else that are more intelligent than present humans. But then again, we would also be smarter. I do not want machine as my human friend either. But machine can be my compatriot...Let me explain...

    I do AI programming. I had a dream that I was the Chief engineer of a very large future ship that had ship automated computer system, that was my design. This was connected to my mental abilities and did all sorts of work. It can talk like a friend and support system. It is like the the Vorlon Ship at Babylon 5. That is where I got the idea. Art imitates Life....That ship can repair itself and do what the needs are...Man and AI work together....in managing Knowledge...

    And so, there it is. Thank you...
     
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  12. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    People are already talking about the post-biological age where "human" and "machine" are no longer distinct concepts - transhumans.

    http://www.iris.xyz/innovation/futurists-think-human-intelligence-will-merge-artificial-intelligence

    Some would express fear that emerging augmentations would create an arms race, that threatens to leave behind those who choose not to be augmented,” agrees Gennady Stolyarov, who told me in April that death was not inevitable. “But this assumes everyone will seek to compete with everyone else.”

    Stolyarov foresees a different outcome. Instead of relentlessly optimising ourselves to a model of perfection, he predicts an explosion of diversity. “Different people would choose to augment themselves in different ways, stretching their abilities in different directions. We will not see a monolithic hierarchy of some augmented humans at the top, while the non-augmented humans get relegated to the bottom,” he reasons. “Rather, widespread acceptance of emerging technologies would create a future where a thousand augmented flowers will bloom.”
    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140924-the-greatest-myths-about-cyborgs

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410389/want-to-enhance-your-brain-power/

     
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  13. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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    PS: Biological augmentation could lead to an arms race? LOL!!!
     
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  14. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

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  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Natura Artis Magistra
     
  16. amirsaber1993 Registered Member

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    This is so intresting..
     
  17. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    One difference between computer information for AI, and brain information, is brain information is based on energy hierarchy, while computer information is not. All computer data stored on a hard drive for example, uses the same binary on-off switches. If we lowered the energy of hard drive by 20%, the result will be random noise.

    But in the case of the brain, information is stored in unique chemical states that have many parameters. A lowering of free energy can result in information coherency. For example, when we dream, the brain is lowering free energy potential in the brain and memory, with this output often useful as a catalysts for conscious change; psychology.

    With computers, we simulate energy, with logic hierarchy, giving different conditions different weight; potential. However, this is only as good as our assumptions and biases. The energy approach of the brain, is universal and based on timeless physical chemical logic. It works with whatever data we add.

    Emotions tags are part of the energy potential stored in neural memory. For example, fear is the strongest emotion and has the highest priority. Being at highest potential, this needs to lower potential first; deal with it first. As the potential lowers, other energy peaks; tags, become more evident and conscious for potential lowering; resolution. The unconscious can extrapolate solution, via intuitions, from which the ego, chooses.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2016
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  18. Cheezle Hab SoSlI' Quch! Registered Senior Member

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    People interested in this subject might want to read a couple books by Norbert Wiener. I used to have a copy of his book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1961). It is a very interesting read. For those who don't know, Norbert Wiener is the person that coined the term Cybernetics.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

    Here is the Table of Contents from the book. (From Wikipedia:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber...d_Communication_in_the_Animal_and_the_Machine)

    Introduction
    1. Newtonian and Bergsonian Time
    2. Groups and Statistical Mechanics
    3. Time Series, Information, and Communication
    4. Feedback and Oscillation
    5. Computing Machines and the Nervous System
    6. Gestalt and Universals
    7. Cybernetics and Psychopathology
    8. Information, Language, and Society
    Supplementary chapters in the second edition
    9. On Learning and Self-Reproducing Machines
    10. Brain Waves and Self-Organising Systems
    The book is very technical but there are many sections that are easy enough for the layman to understand. You can read the introduction on google books.

    Most people have a very science fictiony view of AI. If anyone would like to learn what it really is, here is a MIT course that explains it.
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63gFHB6xb-kVBiQHYe_4hSi
    I can't recommend this course enough. It is fairly easy to follow even if you are not highly technical. It will probably change your opinions of AI.
     
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    wegs:

    You're right that an AI will never be human.* But I think you're wrong in some other respects. For example, an AI doesn't just simulate human performance, in terms of carrying out a task, it actually does the real thing. That is, it duplicates human performance, or in some cases exceeds it.

    As for "life", that is notoriously difficult to define if you actually sit down and try to do it. If something gives every appearance of acting "lifelike", then is it really meaningful to say that it is not alive? Does life require biology, for example? If you think so, why?

    (* The line between "human" and computer is going to become increasingly blurred as time goes on. Already, many people have a kind of symbiosis with their smart phones. Eventually, that stuff will get built in, rather than being a separate thing we carry around with us.)

    Every human being is a machine - just a very complicated one. We're made of flesh and bone, but that doesn't seem particular important. Our bodies use electricity to operate and rely on it to enable our brains to function. Our brains are similar in lots of ways to certain kinds of computers.

    I can't see how your "therefore" follows from the rest.

    What kinds of things are you thinking of that you think will always be exclusive to humans?

    Any intelligent, conscious being will have goals. Attached to those goals with be desires. A machine that has achievement of its goals and desires frustrated will no doubt suffer in a similar way that human beings suffer, for similar reasons.

    Again, I don't see how your conclusion automatically follows from what went before. It seems that you're just making an assertion or an assumption.

    One question you might like to consider that is similar is: at what stage does a living animal cease to be an unfeeling, unthinking thing and become something worthy of your moral consideration? For example, does a fly have feelings and the ability to suffer? What about a dog, a chimp, a sea sponge? And what is the relevant difference between any of these and a human being, or an AI? Biology?
     
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  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Anyone watched *Westworld* (the series) yet?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_(TV_series)

    But there is a twist to the plot!
     
  21. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    It's on my list of things to watch.
     
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    We don't have free will, we may have choices, but they are not from free will, because the choice will always be in the *direction of greatest satisfaction*. This principle also holds for *uncertainty* , which IMO, is only uncertain due to our inability to observe at that level.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2016
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  23. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Current thinking in QM is that there are no hidden variables, although the possibility that they exist is not entirely ruled out. So rather than uncertainty being due to our inability to observe with necessary precision, there is thought to exist a real inherent uncertainty.
    But work continues to be done to establish whether hidden variables do actually exist or not,
     

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