for - progress trap - AI -

article details - title - Hollow, world! (Part 1 of 5) - author - James Allen - date - 10 July, 2024 - publication - substack - self link - https://allenj.substack.com/p/hollow-world-part-1-of-5

summary James Allen provides an insightful description of ultra-anthropomorphic AI, AI that attempts to simulate an entire, whole human being.

In short, he points out the fundamental distinction between the real experience of another human being, and a simulation of one. In so doing, he gets to the heart of what it is to be human.

An AI is a simulation of a human being. No matter how realistic it's responses and actions, it is not evolved out of biology. I have no doubts that scientists are hard at work trying to make a biological AI. The distinction becomes fuzzier then.

Current AI cannot possibly simulate the experience of being in a fragile and mortal body and all that this entails. If an AI robot says it understands joy or pain, that statement isn't built on the combined exteroception and interoception of being in a biological body, rather, it is based on many linguistic statements it has assimilated.