Animals, yes, but I don't think AI will ever be "conscious" though it may appear that way.

I also like what Dennett is quoted as saying about the book, "There were a lot of really good ideas lurking among the completely wild junk.”

@tnorman1236 ...but I don't think AI will ever be "conscious" though it may appear that way.

You may want to rethink this. Ever talk to a rabid MAGA hat wearer?

But what excately is consciousness that AI won't (and/or can't) be?

@1of5 My opinion is that it won't be conscious in the way that we think of it, because it doesn't have a body. Our brain is heavily and intimately tied to our body, and our body has much more input and influence on our brain than we are normally aware of. That sense of "selfhood" comes a great deal from having a body. Memories and thoughts floating around in some machine do not equal a self, or consciousness.

@tnorman1236 can consciousness be considered proprietary to humans? or the "living"?

@hankster I think so. But what do I know?

@tnorman1236 until the AI toaster takes an interest in art history or poetry it will take a lot of convincing, but that being said how much different is a meat machine from a computer?

@hankster I read an interesting article about how the brain works very differently from a computer. The author's whole premise was that we need to stop using brain/computer comparison, and how it's very misleading.

@tnorman1236 Computers are evolving. Memory systems have especially undergone many changes. Now they are playing with storage systems that use things like DNA arrangements.
Computers are also acquiring great self-awareness and mobility. Think autonomous cars! Avoid blinkered thinking and suddenly the idea of computers having consciousness becomes extremely rational.

@tnorman1236 but it does have a body. It has physical presence, input and output mechanisms, language, and can learn on it's own (which is what we do).

The brain of course works differently than a computer - yet the same. Both procces information and come to "conclusions" based on that information. The brain is a very sophisticated, self programming, bioelectric computer.

@Petter @1of5 @hankster Here's the article I was talking about that demonstrates why the brain is not a computer. [aeon.co]

@tnorman1236 I stopped reading after this: Senses, reflexes and learning mechanisms – this is what we start with, and it is quite a lot, when you think about it. If we lacked any of these capabilities at birth, we would probably have trouble surviving.

But here is what we are not born with: information, data, rules, software, knowledge, lexicons, representations, algorithms, programs, models, memories, images, processors, subroutines, encoders, decoders, symbols, or buffers – design elements that allow digital computers to behave somewhat intelligently. Not only are we not born with such things, we also don’t develop them – ever.

Because senses, reflexes, and learning mechanisms actually are information, data, rules and even "software".

It's literally saying that because in Spanish the words are different than in English, Spanish isn't a language.

@1of5 Sorry, but I disagree. How are senses information, data, or rules?

@1of5 But if you had continued reading, you might have found other things that you agreed with.

@tnorman1236 A computer has hardware (the actual, physical device. Firmware, which governs how it responds to sensors and behaves in a fundamental way to stimuli and "stays viable", and then software, which is loaded once the computer is fired up and which will alter according to circumstamces and basic rules in the firmware.
This is no different to a human brain. Damage the hardware and the embryo may not even become aware. Glitch the firmware and the embryo or child will behave differently - hence things like autism. Feed in information and the computer/brain will gain better responses and behaviours.
The hardware may be squishier that silicon, but it is simply a massively parallel computer, similar to a multi-core ARM based super- computer.

@Petter I understand the similarities, BUT did you read the article I attached? You won't find a memory or an image located in any particular place in the brain, unlike a computer that stores these patterns indefinitely for future use. We're limiting ourselves and our future progress by still thinking along those lines. There are vast differences.

@tnorman1236 That's false. There are definite areas of the brain that specialise in specific functions. Neural networks still specialise areas.

@Petter Yes, they are specialized to specific functions, which means they DO certain things, but they don't hold data or images. Anyway, I can see that you aren't going to change your mind, and I'm not going to change mine, so let's call it quits on this discussion.