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by spwa4 13 days ago
> Why would you doubt that you’re sentient?

Because if you apply the same logic to that we apply to AI. "Under the hood" AI is nothing but vector-matrix multiplications and a few other operations.

We know matrix multiplications aren't sentient, nor are those other operations.

Likewise, we know if we look under the hood/cut open a human brain we find conductive membranes, and a Kalium-Natrium balance that shifts, signals jumping from one neuron to the next, moderated by one of four chemicals. And by the way, the structure of neurons looks a lot like one of those vector-matrix multiplications. Not exactly but quite a bit.

Why would we draw a different conclusion? You're not sentient by those rules we use to judge AI.

Everytime someone finds a new way to fool humans into thinking an AI is sentient this comes up again. Of course, these days we have many examples of AIs not just convincing humans they're AI but actually doing it to the point they exploit human thinking and "steal" money (stealing in the hacking sense, except what's hacked is human minds). And doubtless intelligence agencies are doing far, far worse.

1 comments

I don’t say AI is sentient but what do you expect out brain to do in the end, it’s likely just some matrix operations and integration and other stuff arranged in a very intricate way.
The whole human architecture, including everything else, can easily be expressed as just over 2 GB (2 bits per base pair), and compressed to under 300 mb (half of the gains are just specifying the length of some sections rather than everything). And that includes everything from the cpu architecture to toenail building, not just the brain.