The Sentient Statistical Model.
“Necessary does not mean Sufficient.”
As discussions about AI are plagued with anthropomorphism.
The name “Artificial Intelligence” might have something to do with the matter.
We could have named it The Sentient Statistical Model.
The first thing that needs to be realized is that the question of what it takes for something to be conscious is a very old question.
If we don’t know what consciousness is exactly or what it takes for something to be conscious, we cannot rule out the possibility that something in particular is conscious.
But we do not know what it takes for an entity to be conscious and we certainly do know that certain entities cannot be conscious, if the meaning we give to this notion has some vague resemblance with its usual meaning.
A lot has been said and written about consciousness, what it means, what it takes for something to be conscious, etc.
Answers to these questions are not to be found in current AI research but in philosophy and whether a program produces convincing answers to questions.
