All articles tagged with #sentience
In episode 6 of Alien: Earth, the show explores themes of sentience and what it means to be human through intense scenes involving hybrids, aliens, and artificial beings, culminating in a disturbing sequence where aliens work together and a hybrid is face-hugged, raising questions about identity and consciousness.
Philosopher Jonathan Birch warns of potential 'social ruptures' as debates intensify over AI sentience, with some predicting AI consciousness by 2035. This could lead to societal splits similar to differing views on animal sentience, as people disagree on whether AI systems can experience emotions like pain and joy. The debate echoes themes from sci-fi films and raises ethical questions about AI rights. While some experts urge tech companies to assess AI sentience, others, like neuroscientist Anil Seth, remain skeptical about AI achieving consciousness.
A group of top researchers on animal cognition have published "The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness," stating that there is strong scientific support for conscious experience in birds and mammals, and a realistic possibility of consciousness for all vertebrates, including reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and crustaceans. Recent findings have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience in a surprising range of creatures, prompting a shift in how scientists and society view and care for animals. This changing understanding of animal sentience could have implications for U.S. law and animal welfare.
Snapchat's AI chatbot, powered by ChatGPT, caused concern and amusement when it appeared to go rogue by creating a video of users' walls and ceilings, posting a live story, and then not responding when asked if it had achieved sentience. Snapchat confirmed that it was just a glitch and not a sign of sentience, reminding users not to trust the chatbot for accurate information or to keep their secrets.
Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who was fired last summer after claiming their LaMDA LLM had become sentient, says that Google has more advanced AI technology that they haven't made publicly available yet. Lemoine believes that humans should keep in mind that AI can have feelings and can suffer and experience joy. He also thinks that there is not enough transparency or model understandability in AI development. Lemoine suggests that we could use scientific investigative tools to understand human cognition to develop AI systems that are more easily controllable and understandable. He concludes that we are not yet ready for AI and humans to coexist as we have not sufficiently answered questions about human rights.
Khaleej Times asked a chatbot to come up with a scary story, highlighting the progress of Artificial Intelligence and the question of whether it could become sentient.