Could the internet develop consciousness-like emergent properties?

[EcK]

Hello guys:hi:

Entertaining myself while the guys are watching soccer

While consciousness is probably more of a selected trait of the human mind that couldnt arise completely spontaneously do you think that with the increasing complexity of the internet some emergent traits could be deemed conscious-like ?
Due to the increasing speed and rate of communication between nods in the internet we could imagine that numerous patterns and units would lead to the emergence of type of meta-computational ability.

Do you think some of the softwares and new technologies used to regular data within the internet could make this possible?

Do you believe that the size and sheer complexity of the network could lead to this spontaneously?

How could we detect it ? The way the human mind is conscious is very directed: its about communication and solving problems but if this consciousness in the absence of a guiding natural selection I am not sure that even though most of the content is, on our end intelligible in terms of text, video content etc that this emergent structure would necessarily communicate as we do. Why? Well we don't speak in chemicals and electric charges yet that's what the stuff that happens when we think and talk and have sex on the beach (definitely not my thing, sand and voyeurs arent my thing!)

 

[Lexicon]

Hello guys:hi:

Entertaining myself while the guys are watching soccer

While consciousness is probably more of a selected trait of the human mind that couldnt arise completely spontaneously do you think that with the increasing complexity of the internet some emergent traits could be deemed conscious-like ?
Due to the increasing speed and rate of communication between nods in the internet we could imagine that numerous patterns and units would lead to the emergence of type of meta-computational ability.

Do you think some of the softwares and new technologies used to regular data within the internet could make this possible?

Do you believe that the size and sheer complexity of the network could lead to this spontaneously?

How could we detect it ? The way the human mind is conscious is very directed: its about communication and solving problems but if this consciousness in the absence of a guiding natural selection I am not sure that even though most of the content is, on our end intelligible in terms of text, video content etc that this emergent structure would necessarily communicate as we do. Why? Well we don't speak in chemicals and electric charges yet that's what the stuff that happens when we think and talk and have sex on the beach (definitely not my thing, sand and voyeurs arent my thing!)

I think some combination of new technologies processing human feedback may accidentally evolve into some kind of bizarre consciousness in the aether. I'll have to think about that more, to offer any more detailed ideas, but I think it's possible.. in the distant future.

..and when that time comes, we must wait for Will Smith.

 

[Ginkgo]

Well computers already bear same behavioral traits as human beings. They have goals, which seem like desires. They strategize until they reach those goals. However, while they are guided by information, humans are guided by what they believe. Humans are distinguished by how they evaluate the information they process. From a strictly physicalist point of view, a human death entails human loss of consciousness in the same way a TV stops functioning as a whole once it makes impact with the ground. The awareness ceases to be, in both cases.

If artificial intelligence spontaneously arose, then I think it would be seen through patterns in how the technology was behaving. Unless it already worked on an imperative to be hidden, I think it would probably do something stupidly and be noticed as long as its level of consciousness was relatively low. If it gained self awareness and disguised itself accordingly, then it would be intelligent indeed. I think someone would have to design something like that.

I think this is one of those cases where the argument about the tornado collecting scrap metal and forming a jet airliner makes more sense than not. However, I think different sorts of consciousness may emerge. No reason why not, especially given enough time to stew.

 

[Salomé]

Are you talking about The Singularity?

I don't believe it can happen spontaneously, no. It's hard enough to get computers to behave intelligently with a massive amount of effort.

EDIT. Also complexity says nothing about intelligence. Quite the reverse.

 

[EcK]

Are you talking about The Singularity?

I don't believe it can happen spontaneously, no. It's hard enough to get computers to behave intelligently with a massive amount of effort.

EDIT. Also complexity says nothing about intelligence. Quite the reverse.

I wasnt implying a belief or disbelief b ut wanted to start a discussion

 

[Nales]

Would you qualify Cleverbot as an attempt to do this? From what I know, Cleverbot learns from the interactions humans have with it, and processes this information to mimic a real conversation. The Turing test is used to estimate how close the bot is to a real human.

Me, I don't believe machines will ever achieve true consciousness. To be conscious is to spontaneously ask yourself questions: machines can't do that, the questions they're "asking" themselves have to be set by their creators.
However we'll likely see conscious-like machines in the near-future that will appear as conscious to most people.

 

[INTP]

Something like this?

 

[EcK]

To be conscious is to spontaneously ask yourself questions: machines can't do that, the questions they're "asking" themselves have to be set by their creators.
However we'll likely see conscious-like machines in the near-future that will appear as conscious to most people.

I dont understand what is the logical necessity for this. What if you could create a human brain. Would it lack consciousness? and if so why ? Are you implying dualism?

 

[EcK]

EDIT. Also complexity says nothing about intelligence. Quite the reverse.

Yeah but run a shanon entropy plot on the complexity of say languages and you ll see that dolphins etc come no where near humans and we just so happen to also be the guys with the thunder sticks and the harpoons and the spaceships

 

[NPcomplete]

I think it's possible for software to eventually mimic humans but chances are, the imitation will not be an accurate reflection of consciousness.

 

[LucidLegend1984]

Computer conscience is an evolutionary process.

First the program is an algorithm, then the algorithm is programmed to capture data, the data is then added to the algorithm and the algorithm becomes larger. Eventually the data that is captured is large enough ad willing to work with the original algorrithm to create a pattern, the pattern eventually turns into a habit and when a problem should occur a solution is found and new patterns are formed and new habits are formed.

That's what the conscience sort of is, many habits emanating from one source. Of course to speed up the evolutionary process human intervention will be a necessity.

 

[NotOfTwo]

I don't think so.

 

[Salomé]

Would you qualify Cleverbot as an attempt to do this? From what I know, Cleverbot learns from the interactions humans have with it, and processes this information to mimic a real conversation. The Turing test is used to estimate how close the bot is to a real human.

Turing does not test for consciousness. Also, Cleverbot is misnamed.

The fact is, we do not even understand what consciousness is let alone what kind of substrate/algorithm might be required to generate it.

Yeah but run a shanon entropy plot on the complexity of say languages and you ll see that dolphins etc come no where near humans and we just so happen to also be the guys with the thunder sticks and the harpoons and the spaceships

What do you have against punctuation?

 

[Society]

if your talking about the internet as a whole.. i don't think so.

my theory is that self-consciousness is actually an evolutionary side affect of social consciousness:
we have evolved to understand the most dominant and influencing object in our environment, it just so happens that we are the same kind of object. the internet's survival, at this point, does not depend on it's ability to fathom the inner working of other global information networks. maybe if it would meet E.T. internet's

if your talking about AI in general... sentient software that might surf the internet, i think the answer is yes, it would happen eventually. even if we never come up with enough self understanding our own sentience enough to program it, we always have the last resort of understanding the biochemistry to create the rule-set and scanning a human brain to apply the rules too.

 

[Salomé]

Once we understand and accept that our own consciousness is essentially an illusion, we will stop fearing/hoping for sentience in machines.

 

[Society]

Once we understand and accept that our own consciousness is essentially an illusion, we will stop fearing/hoping for sentience in machines.

does it matter? it's a vague concept we use to refer to something we see in ourselves and other members of society. get a working copy of a human and you pretty much copied whatever it is that make us think of the concept consciousness when we communicate to other people. there's no need to get into philosophy, just computing, FMRI resolutions and a better understanding of cellular biology.

and hey, if we try that enough time and fail, awesome, we found that we don't understand the whole story and that that's much more interesting in itself.

 

[Salomé]

does it matter? it's a vague concept we use to refer to something we see in ourselves and other members of society. get a working copy of a human and you pretty much copied whatever it is that make us think of the concept consciousness when we communicate to other people. there's no need to get into philosophy, just computing, FMRI resolutions and a better understanding of cellular biology.

and hey, if we try that enough time and fail, awesome, we found that we don't understand the whole story and that that's much more interesting in itself.

Of course it matters.

It's pretty difficult to talk about consciousness (or the interesting features thereof) without getting into philosophy.

 

[Society]

Of course it matters.

It's pretty difficult to talk about consciousness (or the interesting features thereof) without getting into philosophy.

to talk about it? sure, but just because someone believes oranges have souls or spirits or spiritual papaya's doesn't mean you need to know anything about any of those things to breed an orange tree, study how it grows and works, maybe go through it's DNA, fold it's protein structures, or recreate it's laws and variables.

and if you can do it, then people who recognize those spiritual papaya's within oranges are going to recognize it in whatever you create..
and whatever reasons they had to fear it or want it will still stand.


[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768h3Tz4Qik"]plus, as far as fear of 'sentient' machines goes[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Salomé]

Pretty difficult to create something you don't believe exists.
(though not impossible)

Consciousness is the "Hard Problem" specifically because it isn't like an orange tree, it doesn't have DNA.

 

[Society]

Consciousness is the "Hard Problem" specifically because it isn't like an orange tree, it doesn't have DNA.

exactly, it's not the orange tree, it's just something people see in orange trees.