Quick Updates - 01
Quality of Life Improvements and Polls
A few notes for readers (and now listeners)!
I have begun recording audio renditions of each episode and am uploading them to the respective Substack Article. You may listen to the audio version within the browser-based Substack Website or mobile Substack Application (Figure 1). I hope you all find this helpful, particularly those who prefer to consume information during commutes to work or while doing other activities. I am considering further adding a podcast for those who prefer to listen on that platform.
Polls!
I enjoy both conducting and analyzing polls (as you may have seen from the Roman Empire Post). These seem like a great way to both interact with the community, gauge interest, and get feedback. If you have some interesting Poll ideas, please leave them in the comments!
On this note, I have been thinking a lot about consciousness since the previous post that discussed the development of a parameterized model for assessing consciousness in AI. At the start of the Post, I asked the following question:
“If we train a large language model on all of your personal data, and it becomes indistinguishable from you to all the people in your life, is that AI conscious? Why or why not?”
After some reflection, I think there may have been a more interesting question to ask:
New Question: “Imagine we can fully simulate a human brain in a computer—not just train an LLM to guess the next word of a sentence. This simulated mind would include each neuron of a given brain, their respective configurations, the connections between neurons, the communication synapses, and the neurotransmitter signaling. If this simulated mind is identical to ours in silico, would you consider it conscious?”
I have posed this question on Twitter and received many responses that seem to cover a spectrum. While “No, it is not conscious” is the top choice, it is uncanny that we are now less < 50% according to the survey. It’s certainly an interesting time.
Substack Name:
The top name selection of the previous survey was ‘Neural Nexus’, however it seems like it may still be worth shopping around until something feels like a better fit. I am including another poll below. I would greatly appreciate your feedback!
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The name should definitely not be "Posthumanism" which rings all sorts of negative bells. "Neural Nexus" is a good open-ended name. Open to all sorts of things, even "posrhumanism," if that is at issue.
Neural Nexus is a good basis, however, there are many neural nexus sites, so it may be prudent to keep looking.
RE: Sentience, Conscious AI, give it another 2000 years.