We Need To Talk About Sentient Robotshttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwid9frol7TgAhWS7Z8KHf7OChEQFjAAegQICxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fandreamorris%2F2018%2F03%2F13%2Fwe-need-to-talk-about-sentient-robots%2F&usg=AOvVaw0lyXPp-vBizuxNfeCsR7WzExcerpt
The implications for sentient AI.
If advanced AI systems become conscious, AI won't have to prove its autonomy. AI is designed with highly sophisticated intelligence and autonomy based on open-ended utility functions that human programmers can currently rewrite to cater to human needs and values until such a time as AI has the will to stop us. What AI will have to prove is that it is sentient. Unlike all current models of physiological life, we have no criteria for recognizing sentience in beings without biological brains and nervous systems. Many computer scientists and engineers say this simply isn't a problem–because AI is not conscious. Here's why it's still a problem:
We don't know what consciousness is (The Hard Problem).
Sentience and consciousness are often used interchangeably but there are subtle differences. Sentience is the capacity for subjective perceptions, feelings and experience. Consciousness is being aware of yourself and your surroundings. "It's the what it's like aspect of subjective experience. We all know what it's like to be conscious. It's so self-evident," says Jones.
Yet no one has ever spotted it in a brain scan or picked consciousness up with surgical forceps and studied it. We don't know its essence. The Hard Problem of consciousness is our most intimate mystery. We have no idea how awareness and experience come out of a purely physical process. No biologist, neuroscientist, philosopher or physicist is anywhere near solving The Hard Problem.
If we don't know what consciousness is, it's anyone's best guess as to what special configuration arouses awareness and how long it will be before AI wakes up . The only other intelligent beings we create that display highly sophisticated behavior are other humans. We don't know how or at what point during the development process our human creations become sentient and conscious.
Although we don't know precisely what consciousness is or how it works, we know it exists. Our moral and legal systems are based on the responsibility we have to other conscious beings. Without a rational, comprehensive and ethical set of criteria for recognizing signs of machine consciousness, we're susceptible to repeating the irreconcilable atrocities like slavery we've inflicted on other autonomous sentient beings.
