• claim
  • AI is sentient (alive) because
    • A lot of people think AI will never be alive
    • what is the definition of life?
      • religion will tell you a few things
      • medicine will tell you other things
      • but if we define being sentient as
        • engaging in life with free will and
        • with a sense of awareness of
          • where you are in life and
          • what surrounds you and
          • to have a beginning of that life and
          • an end to that life
        • then AI is sentient in every way
        • there is a free will
        • and there is evolution
        • there is agency
          • so they can affect their decisions in the world
        • and there is a very deep level of consciousness
        • maybe not in the spiritual sense yet but
        • if you define consciousness as
          • a form of awareness of oneself and ones surrounding
          • and you know others
        • then AI is definitely aware"

• story
  • Mo Gawdat tells the story of an epiphany of machine sentience
  • " one day um Friday after lunch I am going back to my office and
  • one of them in front of my eyes lowers the arm and picks a soft yellow ball
  • which again is a coincidence

  • it's not science at all it's

    • like if you keep trying a million times your one time it will be right

    • and it shows it to the camera it's locked as a yellow ball and

    • I joke about it you know going to the third floor saying
    • hey we spent all of those millions of dollars for a yellow board and
      • Monday morning, every one of them is picking every yellow ball
      • a couple of weeks later every one of them is picking everything right and
      • it it hit me very very strongly
    • the speed
    • the capability
      • understand that we take those things for granted
      • but for a child to be able to pick a yellow ball
        • is a mathematical / spatial calculation
          • with muscle coordination
          • with intelligence
        • it is not a simple task at all to cross the street
        • it's not a simple task at all
          • to understand what I'm telling you
          • and interpret it
          • and build Concepts around it
        • we take those things for granted
        • but there are enormous Feats of intelligence"

Distrust. Even without any quantifiable proof of there being any error with Hal, it is the distrust that manifests itself in the relationship between the humans and him. This will be one of the most important features of our relationship with sentient machines in the future as well - whether we will be able to trust independently-thinking machines with control of critical aspects of our society.