The Sentience Paradox
Welcome to my multimodal project which aims to address the question:
"What defines sentience and is it attainable by computers?"
Who am I?
I am Professor Wei Chen*
Ph.D. in Natural Language Processing from University of California, Berkeley
*computer generated image
I am a leading researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence. I have worked in industry developing search engine chatbots and also have expertise in philosophy and psychology.
*=computer-generated content
Modern turing test
The Imitation Game (now known as the Turing Test), invented by Alan Turing in the 1950s, was a test to evaluate a machine's capability to "exhibit intelligent behavior equvalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human." The premise of the test is that an interviewer converses with two subjects, aware that one is a computer and one is a human but does not know which is which. If the computer can consistently fool the interviewer into believing it is the human, that would imply its potential as a sentient being. In recent years, Google’s LaMDA and OpenAI’s ChatGPT have successfully passed the Turing test yet are still not deemed conscious by their creators nor the vast majority of observers. Instead, AI developers have shifted their focus to getting high scores on more relevant, challenging tests such as the General Language Understanding Evaluation (GLUE) or the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD). Through my extensive research, I have become knowledgable about these advanced AIs as well as the biological and philosophical considerations for sentience. I have developed my own test, the Modern Turing Test. It is built on the work done by Alan Turing but updated to challenge the current most powerful computers.
All things AI
ChatGPT is among the latest, most cutting edge technology available. As is the case with such current events, there have not been many extensive, formal research papers on the field, simply because there hasn't been enough time. Therefore, I'm providing a resource hub for all things AI: breaking news, weird (and worrying) interactions. Most importantly, it will provide educational content by other experts in the field. Depsite calls to get them blocked or banned, technology like ChatGPT is not going away, for better or worse. Therefore, our best option is to understand how they work, what they can do (good and bad) as well as what they still can't do. This will help us we distinguish their work from genuine human content and prevent them from spreading misinformation and causing harm.
Ask questions or share your findings!
My ultimate goal with this project is to educate people on what can be a confusing, complex, and sometimes scary topic.
I have learned a lot through this project and would be happy to help answer any questions people may have.
I am always curious to learn more so feel free to share any content or information you think would be beneficial to this site!
Works Cited
Van Gulick, Robert, "Consciousness", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/consciousness Signorelli, Camilo Miguel. “Can Computers Become Conscious and Overcome Humans?.” Frontiers in robotics and AI vol. 5 121. 26 Oct. 2018, doi:10.3389/frobt.2018.00121 Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review, vol. 83, no. 4, 1974, pp. 435–50. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914. Accessed 25 Feb. 2023. Lemoine, Blake. “Is LAMDA Sentient? - an Interview.” Medium, Medium, 11 June 2022, https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917. Joury, Ari. “Is Google's Lamda Ai Truly Sentient?” Built In, 9 Aug. 2022, https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/google-lamda-ai-sentient. Tiku, Nitasha. “The Google Engineer Who Thinks the Company's AI Has Come to Life.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 17 June 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/. Oremus, Will. “Analysis | Google's AI Passed a Famous Test - and Showed How the Test Is Broken.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 June 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/17/google-ai-lamda-turing-test/. Byrne, Micheal. “Neuroscientists Hunt the Line Where Consciousness Begins-and Ends.” VICE, 26 May 2016, https://www.vice.com/en/article/nz73jk/neuroscientists-find-where-exactly-consciousness-ends.
© 2023 by Daniel Louie.