A Senseless Conversation

Nice short story. For a full sci-fi book of this genre, check out <i>Permutation City</i>.<p>For another fun question: "What time is it?"<p>And lastly a quote: "The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly: I'd rather use them to mimic something better." ~E.W. Dijkstra

Fitting. Just a few minutes before reading that I had one of those "Contemplating your hands" epiphanies. I sat down in my computer chair, reached over to my mouse and came to a dead stop. A thought had brought itself to the foreground.<p>"I can't feel myself move."<p>Now when I say this I don't mean a numbness, or loss of the senses. But I couldn't discern what exactly I was doing that made my arm move. Or any other part of my body for that matter. That was silly of course, I move them all the time. So I tried moving them slowly, and felt a slight sensation.<p>Of course I thought; the slight sensation isn't <i>really</i> the feeling of moving my arm, it's the feeling of matter like air brushing against it. After all, I am basically sitting in a tank of atmosphere. Nerves report <i>state</i>, but aren't really projecting the feeling of movement.<p>That thought chain quickly led to a minor existential freakout. (During which I puzzled over the question of how the hell I move at all.)<p>I eventually generated three hypotheses:<p>1) The feeling of movement simply isn't reported by nerves. Introspection can't discern your cognitive processes, so why should it be able to your physical ones?<p>2) The feeling of movement is so faint that its overshadowed by the mere touch of air/one's own body hair. I know that when I'm in the deepest state of somnolence just before sleep; it's very often for me to realize I need to get up to do something, and struggle against the inhibitions on your movement somnolence induces before sleep. I can feel the struggle of this, it also feels the same if you try to fight sleep paralysis. One could argue that this <i>is</i> the feeling of movement.<p>3) You could argue that the feelings reported by nerves about the state of your environment <i>are</i> the feeling of movement. After all, feelings are just signals sent by nerves and interpreted by the brain. These feelings are generated by movement, and thus <i>are</i> indeed the feeling of movement.<p>4) My understanding of cognition is too incomplete to even hypothesize something remotely plausible.<p>Now, considering that so many articles on sleep studies mention them, I'm sure that the mechanics of how the brain controls the body are well understood and that if I'm truly curious I can google it. (Which is something I might just do.)<p>But the real reason I shared that anecdote, besides being semi-relevant to the topic at hand. Is because I took my ability to move for granted. In the same way that I take the idea that we could all be a simulation for granted. I've considered that a non-zero possibility for quite some time now.<p>I'll admit that I read some of the comments here before reading the story. (A big no no for science fiction, a genre that thrives on twists.) And after glancing at Tichy's comment, was afraid I might have spoiled it for myself. However, the journey is more important than the destination, so the concept of such a twist automatically made me go read the story. I was thoroughly disappointed with the ending.<p>The concept of a memory loop isn't really new. (I've seen it mostly explored in the context of time travel, but still.) But trapping a human in a text interface and presenting it as the thinking machine? Morbidly delicious. (In all the right ways.) And useful too. I could pull it out any time someone exhibits signs of having decided that a computer program can't be conscious simply by virtue of not being implemented on a human brain.<p>Having a human brain with no senses hooked up presented as a computer program would really drive home the message.<p>EDIT: Regarding the story, my immediate thought after finishing was questioning why if the program panicked because it lost all it's senses, why didn't he simply swap out the memories of J. Random. Person. With someone who already accepts that they might be a simulation. I'm sure that if they really believed that, it would be possible to calm them down by explaining that they are a simulation of themselves. And for bonus points, if someone were to consent to have their memories used for this (It isn't stated how he actually <i>got</i> the memories mind you.) that they would already have the possibility of being the simulation strongly in their head. And would eventually accept that they are a non-human.<p>Though, if <i>you</i> consent to something like this, you essentially ensure that you can never be sure weather your you or a replay of your memories. Though as it stands, you can't really determine this already. Which makes for one of those classic thought experiments that still has mileage.<p>Trains of thought down this road are probably inherently unresolvable, but still fun to try.

Does anyone remember a thread of comments on HN a year or two ago where a guy was placing bets that he could totally swing your opinion on giving a sentient AI freedom? Supposedly he convinced everyone and won every bet but no-one revealed what he did and I thought this was going to be a posting of one of those conversations at first ;-)

I was imagining an alternative version in which Douglas later reveals that he was not participating at all in the conversation; his computer was covering for him. Good read; thanks for sharing.

Could also be a horror story about a human in a tank who was made to believe it is a computer. The whole tank could then be presented as an intelligent machine.

Sam Hughes wrote the same story 3 years earlier and I think I like his version better: <a href="http://qntm.org/difference" rel="nofollow">http://qntm.org/difference</a>

Several thousand years later... <a href="http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html</a>

The story went off the rails for me when "Zach" said he couldn't hear himself nor feel himself move. Even in the midst of the most severe sensory deprivation, I continue to perceive "noise" in my sensory system: tinnitus, breathing, heartbeat, sub-resolution sparkles in my visual system (just close your eyes and pay attention), kinaesthetic sensations of enormous number and variety. As long as you're going to recreate memories indistinguishable from reality, you'll further need to create sensory input indistinguishable from reality. At which point you've simulated the entire encounterable universe and you indeed have something that I would call intelligent, despite its lack of carbon components in the mental mechanism. Each component technology might be interesting for its own sake, but aside from the philosophical point, what's the use? The carbon based versions are plentiful, and the construction process...

On the subject of the Turing test Turing's actual originally paper is well worth a read: <a href="http://cogprints.org/499/1/turing.html" rel="nofollow">http://cogprints.org/499/1/turing.html</a><p>It's extremely readable and you may be surprised at how often people entirely miss the point when discussing it.

Now the interesting question: How do you know that you are not the result of an experiment of some guy living in a sci-fi world where computation power and storage is extremely powerful? He would put your brain inside a virtual world, and make up all your interactions. The people you talk to, are just a picture, and a sound but they feel real people like you.<p>We have a brain like Zach have, but instead of being put inside Douglas tank, we are showed (and <i>sensed</i>) a virtual world. It's a trap, you can't prove that it's not the case.<p>Douglas also, in your memory, puts some strange definition/notion: infinity. The space and time are both infinite. But does that really make sense? If time wasn't infinite (and began somewhere) then we would know the Douglas trap. He is blocking your knowledge at some point.

If you like this sort of AI where people upload their conscienceness to computers and where people's identites/conscienceoness can 'fork', then check out Greg Egan. They have written lots of scifi on this topic.

Well, to be fair, writing an AI that can fool itself into thinking it's a human. Is much easier than writing an AI that can fool an average human. Any inexperienced programmer can write a program that fools itself with less than 10 lines of code.<p>The reason for that is that one of the problems with the concept of the Turing Test, is it's subject to the intelligence of the tester. A 6 year old boy with no talent in logic is much more likely to think a chat bot is a human, than an experienced CS researcher.<p>The dumber your tester, the dumber the AI needs to be to fool it. If you write a tester who is dumb as a rock, than it's trivial to write an AI that can fool it.<p>Zach and Douglas are only going into a lengthy conversation because Douglas went through the trouble of making Zach smart, knowledgeable and mimicking many human behaviors. If he made Zach as smart as a fundamentalist religious zealot. Then he could have just said "you're an AI because I told you so" and Zach would agree. But then again, that wouldn't be slightly as fun.

This reminds me of one of my all time favorites games "A Mind Forever Voyaging".<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mind_Forever_Voyaging" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mind_Forever_Voyaging</a><p>It's an interactive fiction game where you play the role of a computer that has only just realised that it's a computer. From your point of view, you've been living a human life with real experiences and a family etc.<p>The game manual included a great little short story: <a href="http://gallery.guetech.org/amfv/amfv.html" rel="nofollow">http://gallery.guetech.org/amfv/amfv.html</a>

It isn't very helpful to talk about consciousness without defining it in a concrete way, but I think there might be something to that line of questioning.<p>What about something concrete, like the sensation of pain? I can feel it, and everybody else can probably agree that they feel it too, even if they can't confirm that others do. How would you go about reproducing this sensation in a computer?<p>It's not clear to me that human thought and experiences can be reproduced by any amount of computer logic and memory. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but I think this is an unresolved question.

For a minute there, I really thought he has actually made a reasonable AI machine. Very interesting but disappointing if you were expecting something real. I am still waiting for JARVIS level AI.

Readability link (fixes monospace and window-width columns): <a href="http://www.readability.com/articles/b29kmcjg" rel="nofollow">http://www.readability.com/articles/b29kmcjg</a>

The rhyme thing tipped me about the ending :-)

I wish someone would do this to John Searle. He really deserves it.

If you found this interesting, Hofstadters "Godel, Escher Bach" (and his second, IMHO more readable book "I am a Strange Loop") explore these ideas in great detail

I guessed the ending as soon as he entered the tank but this story still creeped me out :(

Computers are somewhere between humans and bacteria on the conscious scale. Biological or mechanical are just two different ways to shuttle electrons around.<p>I will proudly stand up for the rites of computers as citizens of this country when they exhibit significant signs of ability to choose their own course and have opinions.<p>The computers will be our children, they will colinate the galaxy, and if we are lucky we can subscribe to the experience streams.