i was reading about norns after the discussion in this thread ( viewtopic.php?f=23&t=448 ) and i google norns and insects and found myself here ( http://stevegrand.wordpress.com/2011/03 ... cial-mind/ ) the blog of the guy who made norns (btw the reason it came up in the google search is that in the comments someone was comparing norns to insects)

When they look at you, there will hopefully be someone behind their eyes in a way that wasn’t true for norns.

also from this page ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/150 ... on-your-pc )

I can't promise actual physical aliens from another planet, but I can offer you real 'alien' life forms who can live in a virtual world on your computer. And I do mean real. I'm not talking about a computer game designed to simulate lifelike behavior; I mean genuine artificial life. I mean virtual creatures constructed from complex networks of virtual brain cells and biochemical reactions and genes. They'll learn things for themselves and have their own thoughts.

i sent him a message about this and utilitarianism and stuff

if they can suffer obviously the implications are massive, but also if he can create organisms which can i wonder how much more he can tell us about conciousness and suffering, perhaps hes onto some way of finding out what it takes for an organism to suffer?

i dunno, he seem confident, anyone know anything else about this?

if they can suffer obviously the implications are massive

If they can suffer, the implication is "don't make Grandroids". If they can feel happiness for cheaper than humans, then the implications are massive. Tile the universe with Grandroids. We don't have room for humans.

if he can create organisms which can i wonder how much more he can tell us about conciousness and suffering

I don't see why he'd know much more about it than anyone else. I suppose he put more thought into thinking than most people, but I still wouldn't put that much weight to his opinion.

We don't know if they're conscious. We can't just accept his opinion that they are, and then conclude that he must know a lot about consciousness.

DanielLC wrote:

if they can suffer obviously the implications are massive

If they can suffer, the implication is "don't make Grandroids". If they can feel happiness for cheaper than humans, then the implications are massive. Tile the universe with Grandroids. We don't have room for humans.

Not as simple as it sounds. What about entropy and long-term sustainability? Who manages the maintenance and colonization process? What about harmful darwinian dynamics within the system? What about ever-adapting competition of replicators from outside the system?

DanielLC wrote:

if they can suffer obviously the implications are massive

If they can suffer, the implication is "don't make Grandroids". If they can feel happiness for cheaper than humans, then the implications are massive. Tile the universe with Grandroids. We don't have room for humans.

if he can create organisms which can i wonder how much more he can tell us about conciousness and suffering

I don't see why he'd know much more about it than anyone else. I suppose he put more thought into thinking than most people, but I still wouldn't put that much weight to his opinion.

We don't know if they're conscious. We can't just accept his opinion that they are, and then conclude that he must know a lot about consciousness.

i wasnt saying they will be, just that he refers to having made a "breakthrough" and that hes confident he can do this know, obviously its no reason to simply believe him but if hes worked out how to make artificial conciousness id be very interested to know what his "breakthrough" is and what implications this will have on everything. if he can make conscious beings then perhaps he knows what it takes for something to be conscious, in which case we could use that to know which other organisms are conscoius.

obviously just because he says he can do it doesnt mean he can but he says hes only about a year away and he got the funding he wanted so i guess we'll know soon enough

Hi all,
I'll just be blunt. I think it's highly unlikely that this guy has actually made a serious breakthrough in AI. I think the best approach is to be highly sceptical here because:
1. He's promising something huge
2. Here's being really secretive about it. He doesn't describe any of the current science of conscious AI or how he differs from it. He doesn't describe whether he's using more parallel processing as has been suggested. He doesn't describe his breakthrough...
Big promises without substance = hype. I think in their life, everyone jumps on at least one hype train that ends up leading nowhere. Then they harden up and become a bit more sceptical. For me, at about 15, I followed the prospect of a collaboration between Nintendo and a fan organisation called Warp Pipe. Warp Pipe released tens of cryptic messages. Images, videos, the lot. It seemed that at announcement would not be far away at all. But then the project was cancelled and it came to nothing. I'm no longer sure the relevance of my story, but basically, this guy isn't making it easy for us to believe a thing he says.