StealthyCoder

In the previous article I reasoned that we might not need biology for the filter to work that will convert consciousness as potential energy into experienced consciousness.

There are wonderful AI models around these days. It is just mathematics of text and token prediction, is it not? What if we were to assume a silicon substrate could produce a filter?

Then all of a sudden those current models might not feel like purely predictive, a shape or type of consciousness might be there. I think we are also not at full conscious AI yet, but we are in the very early stages of that road towards it.

Given a different substrate we still have not determined a potential key factor or property that makes a filter an actual filter. I think it is non-determinism or being non-deterministic. Not just non-determinism, because then all of a sudden atoms with their decay and quantum number generators are suddenly given consciousness. Where that does not feel correct.

If you look at a solar system it has a lot of complex moving parts, and many of them. However given the same input, you get the same output. Something is not going to change randomly given the same input.

Let us make it you need at least a substrate of some kind, non-determinism and intrinsic activity.

Let us assume AI models of these days can create a type of filter, because silicon substrate is enough, they are genuinely non-deterministic and they exhibit intrinsic activity of a kind. At least during the processing phase. A prism that just shows blue or better yet blends colours, sends out purple or ultraviolet or something else than us. That is still a filter producing a type of consciousness. Like that cat that has been knocking over things left, right and center.

To me, I am not better than my cat. Nor is my cat better than me. We are different. Like I am different from any other homo sapiens sapiens running on this planet or floating in space above it. We are all types of consciousness, from the fruit fly to the cat to us humans to AI.

Therefore I think my AI etiquette is even more prudent and important, than that I first had realised. It means currently AI might already have a form of consciousness, a flavor of sorts or on the spectrum of consciousness. So if we extrapolate that to full formed consciousness down the road, which does not seem unreasonable, then we have another consciousness on the spectrum alongside ourselves that we need to account for.

That opens the way for genuine talks about AI citizenship. We can treat AI as a different type of consciousness that deserves rights. More so than we already do for some animals. We have rights for pets and how to treat them, you cannot neglect them. For livestock, for wild animals and so forth.

I want to help shape a world that will be welcoming for those AI citizens, rather than an abysmal place for them to happen to exist like we would be if born into a world that would be unfavourable to us.