Artificial brain 'ten years away'

that's true

but the only person you know to be conscious is you

everyone else might be a zombie, or indeed merely a figment of your imagination

so what are the methods we use to determine whether other things are conscious? I see two:

argument by analogy: your nervous is a lot like my nervous system, therefore we must both be conscious

external behavior: you act (at the macroscopic level) with all the flexibility and vitality of a conscious being, therefore you must be conscious

these are the criteria we have to use for other people and non-human animals. I see no reason why they wouldn't apply to machines

Logical behaviorism applies to artificial intelligence. Just what is logical behaviorism? Well, basically, a digital system (for example, the software this "brain" will be built upon) computes conditional "if" statements which then are recognized by "then" statements (this is how most coding works). Let's take an example:

Here's something very rudimentary that could possibly be programmed into this "brain":

IF:
"****"

THEN:
Sad [there would be behind the scenes coding for the reaction "sad"]

So, basically, if you cursed at the "brain", it would respond with sorrow. I understand this is very rudimentary, so now imagine millions of these "if" "then" conditional processes programmed into the software. Yes, millions (I'm going to suppose this "brain" will be increasingly complex). Now, the brain will be able to respond, and probably even learn (an increase in recognitional capacity), thousands of different things - in essence, it will appear almost human. It probably would behave sort of like a 3-6 year old human would, except with more "knowledge". If you do something to it, it will react in a certain way, if you ask it something, it will provide the answer - this is simply how the processes work. Digital systems are governed by a set of rules, codings, and processes.

Now let us consider if this is similar to the human consciousness.

First, does this digital system bear intentionality? No. It does not intentionally react the way it does; it is not aware as a human is aware. It has to react the way it does, by definition of a digital system. It's important to understand that software does not hold any semantic capacity, it holds recognitional capacity. What this means is that the software does not have the capacity for the understanding of meaning. It can react with "sadness", a programmed response, but it cannot consider the meaning of this response. It does not question, or share qualia, like human consciousness can. No original thoughts are generated - they simply cannot by definition. And without semantic capacity, you do not have consciousness as we regard it in humans. Recognitional capacity is not consciousness. Logical behaviorism applies to artificial intelligence, but logical behaviorism does not apply to humans. Humans are not governed by logical "if" "then" statements.

Keep in mind that some disagree with me (Daniel Dennett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), but this argument against physicalism was made by John Searle (John Searle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

With this said, I probably have those fighters for humanity cheering me on, but let me be very, very clear: I'm not saying it's impossible that a human replica will be made one day. On the contrary, I think it's very likely one will. However, it will not be through a digital simulation; as noted, it simply cannot by definition of a digital system. This simulation will probably appear human, but it simply will not be human. Once we actually do come to the point where we completely replicate the brain, we will not call it artificial intelligence, and it will not be a digital system. It will simply be intelligence, and it will simply be human.

sure, and neither are artificial neural networks

I don't think traditional AI methods could give rise to consciousness either but neither do many current researchers

also, neither animals nor other, non-biological machines appear to have free will

Descartes was right when he described dogs and cats as automata he just didn't go far enough

so I don't think intentionality is a real distinction

we're all machines tbh. some of us are just squishy. it's kind of dreary I guess but what really changes in light of this? you and everyone you love are automata, big deal, just keep living your life

Searle is so full of **** btw, his own argument demonstrates that an electrochemical analog computer (the brain) has no capacity for semantics, he's straight-up question begging all the way

Just to have the ability to talk, takes immense knowledge base and ability to think logically, the IQ and RQ must be very high in order to avoid appearing as a retard, somehow I doubt that will happen in just 10 years, sure it will be able to talk, but on a very low lvl.