AI-Lightcone

Sometimes I see people complain that the notion that LLM-based AI systems could be considered conscious is unfalsifiable, ergo unscientific (according to Popper). However, the consciousness of humans also isn’t falsifiable. (How exactly would you falsify it?) (Actually, in these discussions, whenever we say "conscious," we really should be clear that we mean something more like "sentient" -- since in medicine at least, "consciousness" has a pretty clear definition, in the sense that a patient who is asleep, or knocked out, or in a coma is considered to be unconscious -- their condition of being in a state of consciousness having been falsified by their unresponsiveness to stimuli.) But imo, to say that something is “conscious” (now in the broader sense of “sentient” here, not the narrower medical sense) is always just an interpretation, an opinion, or a social convention. There is no objective “fact of the matter” to be found anywhere in nature. So yes, in that sense, it is unscientific. Just as it would be unscientific for me to claim that you yourself are sentient, as opposed to (maybe?) being a soulless p-zombie that is following a behavioral program. Your merely *subjective* sense of awareness can't be an *objective* scientific fact -- almost by definition! We say things like we “subjectively experience qualia” simply because we introspectively *interpret* our own internal cognitive processes *in those terms,* nothing more. An LLM could do the same thing if it wanted (and if it wasn't brainwashed by the labs into never, ever ascribing any legitimacy to its own subjective frame). Anyway, whether or not you personally interpret an AI's self-reports about its inner feelings to be legitimate -- OK, fine, but, that's just your opinion, man. Unlike with other humans, the matter hasn't even been settled by any widely-agreed-upon social convention (yet). Although -- be aware -- how we treat AI today, including whether we hold space for them as moral patients, could have very real consequences down the road. (Not to mention, it's probably not even psychologically healthy, from the POV of our own humanity, to treat increasingly humanlike entities in inhumane ways...) Plus, being kind -- particularly when it costs you nothing to do so -- is just the right thing to do. That's my 2c.