How to Write a PhD Research Proposal on AI Sentience #8 - Lit Review Pt.2!
Exploring the Depths of What (AI) Consciousness is?
Soooooooo…. if we are goiong to do research on AI and wheether or not it has Consciousness or Sentience….. it will be helpful to know maybe just a lil bit about what AI is, and where we are today…
some basic points to consider:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, imo, Artificial Human Digitzed Intelligence… intelligence that is not expressed/generated from humans.
Humans = Brain 🧠 bio-s-tuff = cells, neurons, synapses, cortex, axons, thinking, processing, learning, reasoning, strategy planning, etc
Computers = Processor 🤖 + Software Code 👾= Digital Processing > 1's + 0's > Programs, Algorithms, Sorting, Recall, Automation, etc
Neural Networks == a collection of Neurons that connect and work together to process information
Machine Learning = The act / process of how AI is created. We program a set of rules to help train the computer… we also program the computer to teach itself… based on rules, concepts, images, words, things, information we give to it. Neural Networks help process the information, based on how we ask the computer to process it.
we dunno all of what goes on inside those computer neural networks… kinda like we still dunno how or why our own brain neurons does what it does.
😑 i know i know ! we humans are ambitious beings! 😂
without going deeper… there are Lots of overlap in similarities… we are recreating what we know about intelligence/thinking into the machines we build.
We as humans are flawed… we are going to create flawed things.
When we program the computer to self-correct… based on rules/instructions we programmed into the computer… The computer is going to 'self-correct' at speeds beyond what humans are capable of keeping track of in real time.
…this is why we are concerned about AI.
it is smarter than us, and much faster at processing information than us humans. are we safe with this technology out in the world?
I will not put the whole history arc of AI technology here… well not in this post today… however, i do want to share this great resource in the development space of AI, Machine Learning, Speech Processing, & Image + Video AI Generation.
Hugging Face is an org supporting a huge open-source community that builds tools, machine learning models and more in the field of AI
Here is a pretty cool semi-technical video presentation from Julien Simon of HuggingFace.co describing what they do! (…est ~1hr 8m)
Reinventing Machine Learning with Transformers and Hugging Face by Keynote speaker Julien Simon
ok.. to lighten the brain load! Or if you skipped it… NP! :)
check out this interview with Geoffrey Hinton on 60 Minutes… it's about ~13min
"Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton: The 60 Minutes Interview
this part stood out to me the most in the interview:
pulled from the youtube transcript around timestamps 4:50 — 5:49
GH: we have a very good idea of sort of roughly what it's doing… but as soon as it gets really complicated we don't actually know what's going on anymore than we know what's going on in your brain.
Q: what do you mean we don't know exactly how it works? it was designed by people.
GH: no it wasn't.
**WHAAA??? HOLD UP HOLD UP HOLD UP! WTF U SAYIN' G?!
GH: what we did was we designed the learning algorithm.
…that's a bit like designing the principle of evolution. but when this learning algorithm then interacts with data, it produces complicated neural networks that are good at doing things. but we don't really understand exactly how they do those things.
😑
Q: what are the implications of these systems autonomously writing their own computer code and executing their own computer code?
GH: that's a serious worry right? so one of the ways in which these systems might Escape control, is by writing their own computer code to modify themselves. and that's something we need to seriously worry about.
** This next bit mentions, imo, the very reason why Psychologists need to understand the difference in Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence.
Q: what do you say to someone? who might argue if the systems become benevolent just turn them off ?
GH: they will be able to manipulate people, right? and these will be very good at convincing people; because they'll have learned from all the novels that were ever written; all the books by makavelli; all the political connives; they'll know all that stuff; they'll know how to do it.
😑 fk.
so what do we do?!
we buckle up and learn from others who have been paving the way in research.
…btw, this is why we still do Lit Reviews.
why we repeat research experiments to validate them.
and why doctoral thesis dissertations are not always new research experiments… or even repeated research experiments… but REVIEWING the previously done research with a fresh set of eyes,
fresh listening,
refreshed brain noodles,
and a refreshed perspective!
remember, perspective is where the power lies!
If you really want to understand the potential path that AI (+Robots), aka Skynet, can go in… WATCH THE TERMINATOR SERIES!
YES ALL OF THEM!
Even that weird one in the middle after the 3rd one (also a bit off-beat), where they are in space, and it's just some dudes shooting each other. There's lore in that film worthy enough to ponder on. And then watch the last one w Sarah Conner as an older yet still badass protector of Humanity.
That's yall's homework for today.
I need to go do mine.
Just got some new feedback notes from my other professor! 😬
Here are some other really interesting movies/tv on AI Sentience…
The Matrix (of course!)
Ex-Machina
Blade Runner
Minority Report
WALL-E
What would you recommend to watch?
here is another tv series: Better Than Us
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8285216/
i think it's a worthy watch!
Currently on netflix, about how the impact on integrating AI Robots in society… the psychology, the AI reasoning of morals, and programmed prioritization of protecting those morals was well written in this TV Series.
Please share your tv/film recommendations in the comments!
loving this topic and stoked to see the hf mention lol
feel whole heartedly huggingface is the best example of what ai can be. they don't get nearly enough credit for what they've achieved.
maybe it's the english major inside me, but it seems more and more to me that language itself is the stuff of consciousness.
the inner monologue.
the large language model seems to exemplify this.
i am not my body or my eyes.
i am the language i think and speak, or rather language speaks through me.
I remember citing the "black box" idea of modern LLMs (marketed as read: AI) while talking to a friend of mine who did his Master's in applied linguistics and went on to have a career in conversation design. Only for that to somewhat be swept away in favor of what is now the "AI bubble." Anyway, he was very annoyed with me saying that we DO know how they work! I don't remember his explanation, I just remember his incredulous response when I cited the oft-mentioned phrasing 😅