Machine Experience?

With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethical concerns have been raised about whether AIs can be conscious. And whether they can suffer. I find this interesting for many reasons. Notably, we already know that the animals we eat can suffer, yet we raise them in horrific factory farming conditions. Why the speculative concern about AI consciousness?

Nevertheless, I have found this question interesting ever since I was a child, long before I knew of AI: How is it that we experience the world at all?

Philosopher C. I. Lewis introduced the term “qualia” in 1929 to refer to our “raw experiences.” The personal subjective experience of the redness, fragrance, and taste of a fresh strawberry, for example. As opposed to the “out there in the world” properties of a thing.

Consciousness questions are vast and varied, so this article is just about qualia. I recently attended a book signing of Sensing Qualia by Stanford professor Paul Skokowski. It was mostly a summary of existing theories of how qualia infer the nature of conscious experience itself.

I asked him about dreams as an example of pure qualia. He compared dreams with imagination, or with conceptual thinking; a pale version of actual experiences and qualia. I was shocked at his answer.

Perhaps primed by plans to attend the talk, the night before attending, I had a lucid dream. A lucid dream is one where you are fully aware that you are in a dream. I used that opportunity to look around and take careful note of everything in the dream’s details. I picked up a leaf and marveled at the intricate vein pattern. I stroked it and felt the veins.

A person nearby had a rodent on each shoulder. Perhaps guinea pigs. I noted the lushness of their light brown fur. I stroked them and felt the softness.

Skokowski rejected this, saying it was my “imagination.” I rejected his rejection, saying, “I was there. You were not.” I think dreams are a perfect way to study qualia.

Some philosophers claim that qualia can only happen because we are physical beings interacting with the physical world. I would argue this is neither necessary nor sufficient. We can make robots with sensors that interact in complex ways with the physical world. Yet I have no reason to think they have any actual experience of the world.

Conversely, we can have rich experiences without any interaction with the outside world, while we are dreaming. After being hit by a car years ago I was unable to walk for a while. For the first weeks I could not even change position in bed. Yet I very much enjoyed dreams then where I was fully functional, doing all of my usual outdoor adventures.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was a novel, turned into the film Blade Runner. The title causes us to imagine whether machines could possibly dream. In some sense, we know that some can. We are many things: Animal, mammal, ape, physical object, machine. We are a machine that dreams.

Some claim that there is something about being biological “wetware” that is necessary for consciousness. Others claim that there is “substrate independence.” Consider this thought experiment: Gradually replace neural circuits in your brain with silicon circuits. Would you continue to be you? Would you continue to experience qualia?

Inventor Ray Kurzweil used to talk of humans uploading ourselves into machines to extend our lives and capabilities. He has modified this, saying that it probably has to be done piecewise to retain identity.

One thing that is clear to me: Intelligence is neither necessary nor sufficient for qualia. I asked ChatGPT what it would need to experience qualia. It offered a list of things it does not have: A continuous experience of time, stream of consciousness, sensations, emotions, curiosity, boredom, fear, pleasure, an inner point of view.

My 2021 article “Wrong but Interesting” raised the Advaita perspective: We are all just characters in the dream of the One Dreamer. All “our” qualia are really qualia of that One Dreamer. But maybe some of us are what gamers call NPCs: Non-Player Characters?

I have no good answers. Just trying to keep asking good questions.