08/24/22

Consciousness

As a programmer, I believe, an AI will never be self-aware.

An AI is nothing but a script that pulls from a database when certain conditions are met. No matter how big that database gets and no matter how complex the conditions were, the AI will not gain consciousness.

To believe otherwise is like making a handful of goo and thinking that if you make that same goo the size of our planet it will all of a sudden gain consciousness. You don’t have to be a programmer to know that’s illogical. If it didn’t work on a small scale, it will not work on a larger scale.

It’s like a piano, where each key corresponds to a specific note or sound. The difference with AI is that, for each key, there’s a set of possible notes. At first, the AI randomly selects from that set. Over time, based on user interactions or the model’s design, it learns to play the most popular or favored notes more often. This process is called machine learning. However, it doesn’t truly “think” for itself—it simply follows a model. Regardless of how large the piano gets or how many sounds it can produce, it remains, at its core, a piano. It won’t suddenly become a conscious being, because the issue isn’t the size or processing power—it’s the underlying design.

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