> artificial consciousness, or creativity, or desire, or whatever you want to call it. I am quite confident that we’ll be able to make computer programs that perform specific complex tasks very well. But how do we make a computer program that decides what it wants to do? How do we make a computer decide to care on its own about learning to drive a car? Or write a novel?
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
We cannot decide what we want to do--we can only decide how best to fulfill our wants; a person learns to drive a car because we want the freedom, social approval, and other stuff that comes with that.
Natural selection gave us our base-level desires, that all other desires spring from; and it was able to do that because it's an optimization process. A functional AI's desires will come from some sort of optimization process; the only question is what that process will be optimizing.
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
We cannot decide what we want to do--we can only decide how best to fulfill our wants; a person learns to drive a car because we want the freedom, social approval, and other stuff that comes with that.
Natural selection gave us our base-level desires, that all other desires spring from; and it was able to do that because it's an optimization process. A functional AI's desires will come from some sort of optimization process; the only question is what that process will be optimizing.