Seriously. 'Existential' (epistemological+influential) power of AGI by definition (sorry, no definition, read it like "in my opinion") encompasses "all of science" or at least some "analog" of science (working somewhat differently than "human science"), in which there will be analogs of all human sciences nonetheless. I want to put forth my opinion that it's foolish to search for some numb mathematical formalism, one that isn't informed by philosophical theories, in hopes that it will generate all of science or comparable. That's too primitive. Remember that scientists from different fields have different cognitive styles, different sciences have different philosophy, methodology, paradigms, the "style of mental content". AGI by definition (or in my opinion) will present a unified understanding of all of them from a "sufficiently philosophically powerful/abstract" philosophical foundation. So why not work on that theory?
See for example, the Buddhist descriptions of the jhanas, progressive levels of consciousness in which meditators peel back the layers of their personality, human awareness and end up in pure awareness and beyond. It's hard to read (and experience, albeit only the initial stage in my case) such things and not be left in little doubt that consciousness doesn't derive from thought like philosophers like to believe (no, Descarte, you are not just because you think).
It's for this reason I don't buy the AGI hype. Maybe after fundamental breakthroughs in computation and storage allow better simulations, but not any time soon since these traditions tell us consciousness isn't emergent. Most AGI researchers are barking up the wrong tree. Still, the hype boosts valuations so perhaps it's in their best interests anyway.
Philosophers can get so wrapped up in thoughts they say nonsense like "I can't comprehend not having an internal monologue", which you can experience any time you watch a film, listen to music, etc. Someone with only the smallest experience of meditation shouldn't fall into such thought traps.
Everything outside philosophy and science is religion. Not to say it's necessarily wrong. But with religion you start with a dogma. With philosophy you start with none. And you have to prove everything according to the dogma. If the dogma seems incorrect, then the assumptions that lead to this dogma are wrong; so you have sects around which parts of the dogma are most correct, and so on.
Buddhism is, to my understanding, something where the dogma is easily proven or disproven by doing the meditation, but doing that much meditation is not accessible to everyone. And so it lies in the realm of religion where you trust in the monks who have done it and build off that.
This makes sense because it is trivial to empirically measure if a person has achieved the cessation of dukkha and escaped the wheel of rebirth
This is my beef with the field in its entirety as well. Stupid philosophers.
>... and traditions such as Buddhism that have been studying consciousness for millenia.
As opposed to say, philosophy?
> Philosophy is just thoughts and thoughts about thoughts.
I think these thoughts contain (in an ideal variant of philosophy which doesn't exist yet) enough "philosophical content" to directly help create AGI. Why do you think philosophy is so irrelevant here?
> Philosophers can get so wrapped up in thoughts they say nonsense
If someone says nonsense, that should not discredit the general ideas/foundation.
This is called an argument. It's what philosophers make.
Your attitude is a pretty typical one: "Philosophy is stupid, but this philosophical viewpoint that I have is special and somehow not bound to the things that apply to philosophy." It's a very common and predictable move from those that lack knowledge of the subject; the New Atheists and the philosophy of religion are a very prominent example.
Is it possible to compute without consciousness? (Yes.)
Is it possible to perform calculation over ideas without consciousness? Apparently so.
> understanding
You should prove that a "formal" form of understanding would be insufficient for reasoning.
> In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions.
So I consider methodology philosophical in character. So I propose researching methodology from a unified philosophical foundation
1. Sloppy, unclear thinking. I see this constantly in discussions about AGI, superintelligence, etc. Unclear definitions, bad arguments, speculation of a future religion "worshipping" AIs, using sci-fi scenarios as somehow indicative of future progress of the field, on and on. It makes me long for the days of the early-mid 20th century, when scientists and technicians were both technical and philosophically-educated people.
2. The complete and utter lack of ethical knowledge, which in practice means AI companies adopt whatever flavor-of-the-day ideology is being touted as "ethical." Today, that seems to be DEI, although it seems to have peaked. Tomorrow, it'll be something else. The depth of "ethics of AI" or "AI safety" for most researchers seems to be entirely dependent on whatever society at large finds unpleasant.
I have been kicking around the idea of starting a blog/Substack about the philosophy of AI and technology, mostly because of this exact issue. My only hesitation is that I'm unclear of what the monetization model would be – and I already have enough work to do and bills to pay. If anyone would find this interesting, please let me know.
I’d love to hear some perspectives that were not almost entirely from a tech industry perspective. They take such a narrow view.
In other words — here as in many areas there is no incentive to dig deep, while there are plenty - to stay on the surface and tell scary stories about agi doomsday to journalists who barely have writing skills, let alone some philosophical or logical foundations.
