Visual consciousness is the most profound phenomenon in the universe: The AI, neuroscience & metaphysics

IMAGE CREDIT | edutopia

I don’t know about you, but when I look around, I can actually see, can perceive, an actual visual field. I’m not just receiving a list of objects and responding to their positions like some camera-sporting AI.

I can damn well see them.

So (1) visual perception, and consciousness as a whole, is incredibly underrated as a scientific phenomenon when you think about it and (2) does anyone seriously think that AIs will ever have this capability?

I think it’s bordering on ridiculous to claim that a neural network AI has any actual level of ‘genuine’ perception like us humans although of course I can’t prove it and of course that begs the question of why we have consciousness in the first place.

So it seems I’m on thin ice, except, let’s see where this takes us. We’re talking — IMO — about the difference between humans and an AI or, for that matter, between humans and a smart camera-AI sporting toaster, at least as far as true sentience goes.

I think the claim, deep-down essentially believed by many scientists and researchers, that ‘one day’ AIs may become conscious is purely based on the fact we are conscious (‘so it must be possible’), not due to any actual promising…