Douglas: OK, I hadn’t realised you were talking about him; my bad. And, sure, another approach Eliezer could have taken is to say “an AI and a soul aren’t the same thing”. But I don’t see why that would be any improvement on what he actually did do.
Also: “soul” is used vaguely enough that I don’t think Eliezer could justifiably claim that an AI wouldn’t have to be a soul. If his interlocutor believed, e.g., that a soul is what it takes in order to have real beliefs, feelings, will, etc., then saying “oh no, I’m not talking about souls” could have led to all sorts of confusion. Better to stick with specifics, as Eliezer did, and let the chap’s definition of “soul” sort itself out in the light of whatever conclusions are reached that way.
Either your meaning of “somewhat willing” is very different from mine, or I’ve not been very clear. I don’t think there’s any good reason to think that anything that deserves to be called an AI is yet in existence. (Of course there are computers doing things that once upon a time were thought to be possible only for genuinely intelligent beings; “AI is what we haven’t worked out how to do yet”, etc.) As to whether we’ll make one in the future, that’s dependent (at least) on continued technological progress, availability of resources, non-extinction, etc., so I certainly don’t think it’s obvious that it will ever be done.
I can’t tell you what evidence would convince me of the existence of “souls” until I know what you mean by “soul”, and maybe also “exist”. If, e.g., “soul” means “eternal being granted life by God” (I guess we’d better throw in “immaterial” or something), then clearly I’d want to be shown (1) good evidence for the existence of some sort of god and (2) good evidence that that god does, or at least should be expected to, grant life to immaterial eternal beings.
#2 seems to involve either second-guessing what a being whose mind is vastly unlike ours would do, or else accepting some sort of revelation; but all the candidates for the latter that I’ve looked at enough to have an opinion seem ambiguous or unreliable or both, to an extent that makes it very difficult to draw any useful conclusions from them.
Now, actually that definition seems to me a very poor one—I don’t see why “eternal” or “made by God” should be any part of the definition of “soul”. Perhaps you have a different one?
Douglas: OK, I hadn’t realised you were talking about him; my bad. And, sure, another approach Eliezer could have taken is to say “an AI and a soul aren’t the same thing”. But I don’t see why that would be any improvement on what he actually did do.
Also: “soul” is used vaguely enough that I don’t think Eliezer could justifiably claim that an AI wouldn’t have to be a soul. If his interlocutor believed, e.g., that a soul is what it takes in order to have real beliefs, feelings, will, etc., then saying “oh no, I’m not talking about souls” could have led to all sorts of confusion. Better to stick with specifics, as Eliezer did, and let the chap’s definition of “soul” sort itself out in the light of whatever conclusions are reached that way.
Either your meaning of “somewhat willing” is very different from mine, or I’ve not been very clear. I don’t think there’s any good reason to think that anything that deserves to be called an AI is yet in existence. (Of course there are computers doing things that once upon a time were thought to be possible only for genuinely intelligent beings; “AI is what we haven’t worked out how to do yet”, etc.) As to whether we’ll make one in the future, that’s dependent (at least) on continued technological progress, availability of resources, non-extinction, etc., so I certainly don’t think it’s obvious that it will ever be done.
I can’t tell you what evidence would convince me of the existence of “souls” until I know what you mean by “soul”, and maybe also “exist”. If, e.g., “soul” means “eternal being granted life by God” (I guess we’d better throw in “immaterial” or something), then clearly I’d want to be shown (1) good evidence for the existence of some sort of god and (2) good evidence that that god does, or at least should be expected to, grant life to immaterial eternal beings.
#2 seems to involve either second-guessing what a being whose mind is vastly unlike ours would do, or else accepting some sort of revelation; but all the candidates for the latter that I’ve looked at enough to have an opinion seem ambiguous or unreliable or both, to an extent that makes it very difficult to draw any useful conclusions from them.
Now, actually that definition seems to me a very poor one—I don’t see why “eternal” or “made by God” should be any part of the definition of “soul”. Perhaps you have a different one?