Ask Lemmy

If the future involves Detroit: become human level AI and robots, it really makes me unsure about all of these questions. At that point, like the game brings up, we may need to start treating them as human, and that could change my mind about a couple of these.

1. With what is actually likely for our future? Fuck no. Bunch of spyware trying to worm it's way into every aspect of life. Not that I am even having kids away, in large part because of my pessimism for the future.

2. I can't imagine myself ever doing that. Part of what makes relationships so awesome is the fact that it is another person who willingly chooses to spend their time, money, space, and life with me. Having a robot that you buy and boot up would feel soo hollow.

3. Not with current approaches, technology, and people in charge of it. These psychopath leading these AI companies don't want robots with consciousness, they might demand rights. They just want a tool they can tell to do whatever they want.

Not in a million years.

I don't even trust it to manage my shopping list.

Romantic relationships with AI dove tails nicely into the phenomenon of rising divorce rates among the working class. And using AI to rear children is an extension of the trend where the professional managerial class is seen as the vanguard of family values. Working class will be told to use AI to raise their children because they can't afford an actual human, that's reserved for the PMC and the elite who "know better" how to rear children.

I wouldn't let AI take care of a light switch.

Would you let artificial intelligence take care of your children?

I mean, there are presumably going to be AI systems of a sort that I'd consider capable of reasonably acting in a life-critical role.

If we're talking something like the current 2026 crop of LLMs, like Grok or ChatGPT, then no. Self-driving cars have systems developed using machine learning, and those can operate in limited, specialized life-critical roles in 2026. If you call those AIs, then I'd trust them to drive a kid from Point A to Point B.

Could you have a romantic, platonic or other relationship that imitates interpersonal relationships with artificial intelligence?

I don't see any theoretical reason why it'd be impossible, given the right environment. But I'd be inclined to think that any sort of human-AI relationship will look different from a human-human relationship, just because the kinds of human-human relationships that we invest time into are because we are, well, humans, with everything that comes with that. We can't easily be modified, we invest in building long-term relationships, we are expensive to create, we can't be "rolled back".

A sexy chatbot or something like that, whether-or-not it can be fun, isn't really the same sort of situation that one has with humans. You can erase or tweak the thing at will, just walk away. You can "undo" things that you've said. I doubt that, by-and-large, those properties, which exist now, will be removed from AIs. I'd say that those characteristics necessarily create a different environment, no matter how sophisticated or human-like you could make something, no matter what kind of robotic systems you hook up to them, no matter what visual representation they have, no matter what their speech can sound like.

Further, I'd say that it'd similarly change what human-human relationships looked like if human-human relationships had those properties. What if you could "undo" things that you said to a human partner? Fork them, modify them, and try interacting with them with those modifications? Discard forks freely? I'd think that that'd likely change how we interact with human partners a lot.

With a human partner, you are, to steal a video gaming term, playing on ironman mode, with permadeath, and with a fair bit at stake. That is going to affect how you act. I think that it is unlikely that human-AI relationships will, by-and-large, wind up in that situation, whatever technological developments happen.

Do you believe that artificial intelligence will ever gain consciousness?

To steal a famous quote from Edsger Dijkstra:

The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim.

That is, it's really a matter of definition. Lots of words in the English language haven't been fully-defined. How many grains of sand are there in a "heap"? If one grain isn't a heap, but a lot are, there must be some sort of point where you transition to a heap. But...we can usefully use the word "heap" without ever bothering to specifically nail down any precise definition, because our use doesn't really rely on there being a precise, agreed-upon split between "heap" and "non-heap".

In general, in philosophy, questions about definitions aren't terribly interesting. That is, if I have already defined what "green" means precisely, asking whether-or-not something is green is interesting. But if I haven't, well...asking whether or not a given hue is blue or green (if you even have a language that has the blue-green distinction, which not all do) isn't really all that interesting. You could define it whichever way you want, get people to adopt that convention, and the world would still go on, using that now-nailed-down definition.

I think that we all recognize that there is some level of complexity and sophistication where something is self-aware, and that humans

absent suffering serious brain damage

normally qualify as being self-aware. And that we also think that a four-function calculator is not self-aware. If we were less-and-less complicated, our degree of self-awareness would probably become more-and-more primitive, and at some point, we wouldn't have it. But...as to the question of what level of complexity, what set of features exactly "counts" as self-awareness...shrugs It's like asking what qualifies as a heap. We've never bothered to define it, since it hasn't really been something that we've had to deal with. You could define it wherever you wanted. It's possible that someone could define self-awareness in some sort of way that it'd be possible for it to be impossible for an AI to do. I personally feel like you'd have to go out of your way to do that, but my real point is that I just don't think that the question is all that interesting, because it's really one of definition, of defining something that isn't today defined.

I think that we will, sooner-or-later, achieve computer systems that can increasingly reason and act in ways that today, only humans can do. It is possible that we will never build computer systems that work in exactly the same way that humans do. For example, we could probably build a camera that works more like a human eyeball, but we have digital cameras in 2026 that work on different principles that are preferable for our uses. Aside from pure amusement or academic curiosity, we don't have much reason to make a "human-eye-style camera". But I think that our machines will increasingly be able to do what humans do. I don't think that there is some sort of obvious and intrinsic "unreachable" property of self-awareness that humans have that human-built machines cannot have. As long as it is desirable to build a machine that can think about itself as a thing, which I think it probably is, then I imagine that we will build such a thing sooner-or-later.

It will probably be heavily involved in the caring of older adults in the next decade so we can test it on them first.

Not now, not ever, unless we somehow could be certain that the artificial intelligence in question is capable of the same level of empathy, self sacrifice and understanding of paralinguistic information as humans.

How do you know that other individual people have these capacities? The short answer is that you don't, you trust that they do based on how they appear to behave. The problem of other minds is not currently solvable.

The current state of llms? No oh gods no.

Future state. Depends how they turn out.
40K AI? Nope
iRobot, Nope
That robin Williams AI film, maybe....
Terminator? Ha! If they survive

Would you let artificial intelligence take care of your children?

Like a nanny or parent? No. I would not have kids unless I wanted to be a parent and raise and take care of them.

Like an occasional babysitter? Still no. I would want those opportunities for my children to connect with their "village"; to bond with, learn from, and be protected by other adults around them outside our tiny family unit.

Could you have a romantic, platonic or other relationship that imitates interpersonal relationships with artificial intelligence?

No. It's very important for me that the people I choose to spend my time with also choose to spend their time with me, because they enjoy my company as I enjoy theirs.

Do you believe that artificial intelligence will ever gain consciousness?

The day I can properly define and measure consciousness I might have an answer... right now I can only speak from my gut: I really hope not.

I don't think it would do any good, for them to "exist", nor for our (for lack of a better word) "souls". We really don't need to invent a new species to torment/enslave for our pleasure.

no to childcare, i would not let an AI raise my children for the same reason I would not let a bird raise my children. different species.

platonic relationship - with an advanced enough AI, I'd feel comfortable having an AI acquaintance.

i would feel ridiculous having a romantic relationship with an AI the same way I would feel ridiculous if I had a romantic relationship with an automobile or bird.

consciousness?

absolutely, it's a matter of the right number of neurons and the acknowledgement that "consciousness" is the expression of interactive instincts, knowledge and largely patterned reactions rather then a magical "soul" from an unknowable plane.

AI consciousness is a matter of advancement and increasing complex awareness until AI is indistinguishable from I.

AI consciousness will one day become as complex as human consciousness, which is limited and calculable.

If the definition of AI as Artificial Intelligence means the Intelligence is not real, i would say no. So, that rules out Asimov robots, and anything similar i see them similar to our real AI, just computers running through algorithms. But, if the definition of Artificial strictly means 'not biological,' I think it could be possible.

So, Data from Star Trek. I feel as though he has real Intelligence, capable of independent thought. I could be friends with him. I'd let him babysit. He just doesn't have emotions. And that is a quirk to him, Lore has them and is physically nearly identical. Also, Andrew from Bicentennial Man (an exception to the Asimovs). And I am pretty sure I could love David from A.I. as an actual child. I would definitely help Ava escape at the end of Ex Machina.

Bishop from Aliens is a challenging one. I feel like he is basically an Asimov type robot, but he was very selfless in his sacrifice to save the humans. I kind of think I could let him babysit, as long as the kid does not know he is a robot. I don't think it would be good for them socially. But I don't think I could treat him like a friend.

I would never let GLaDOS babysit.

You're absolutely right, I shouldn't have let them play with the outlets, and now they're in the ER in critical condition. That's on me, I apologize.

Well, I wouldn't use AI to watch YOUR kids.

I mean Im basically an antinatilist so its kinda a moot question for me. To me global human society has to do things waaaayyyyy better to be bringing kids into it.