Re: Jaron Lanier Got Up My Shnoz on AI

From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Wed Jan 16 2002 - 00:07:24 MST


On Wednesday 16 January 2002 01:37, John Clark wrote:
> Randall Randall <wolfkin@freedomspace.net> Wrote:
> > Creativity is just mixing data to produce new data that seems
> > relevant.
>
> Gee, you make it sound so easy!

Well, the hard part comes later: deciding what to keep. For some
things, that's a straightforward process, hence computer-generated
music, etc. For some things, it may not be so easy.

> > Sentience, on the other hand, is sort of vague, and involves
> > awareness of self.
>
> Animals have been aware of themselves for a very long time,

Really? Probably chimpanzees and some other primates are aware
of themselves (in a way that current programs aren't, I mean), but I'm
not sure of it. How, exactly, did you learn that animals (which, except
for some primates, can't let you know directly) are aware of themselves?

> certainly the parts of the brain that deal with fear, love, pleasure
> and pain are very old; but it took another 400 million years of
> experimentation before evolution invented true intelligence and
> the creativity it produces.

Response is not self-awareness. Having the chemical and physical
states that correspond to loving, fearing, and feeling pleasure and
pain does not make an animal a person, even though people also
have these states.

-- 
Randall Randall <wolfkin@freedomspace.net>
Crypto key: www.freedomspace.net/~wolfkin/crypto.text
On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man;
The shape of his own future, now in his own hands.-- Johnny Clegg.


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