Posted: Jun 16, 2022 9:11 pm
An AI could be 'embodied' in many ways. It can have an avatar. User for interacting with humans. Also useful for inhabiting a space with humans in VR. Just like humans, the outer appearance won't resemble the inner workings.
I agree, but it wouldn't be intrinsic to it - it would be extrinsic, imposed upon it, even were it to choose its look itself. That's a distinction. We don't typically get to choose what we look like, we just look like that. Our image of ourselves comes about through seeing ourselves in a mirror - there's something there to see that is 'me', unlike with the AI which has no intrinsic geometry aside from hardware which doesn't quite present an analogy to physiology.
I am not even sure whether such an AI would feel the need for such an embodiment other than to make humans feel more relaxed - what use would it be to such an entity?
I disagree. An AI interacting with humans is quite likely to have an expressive humanoid face.
For the benefit of humans, and probably because a human programed it to. But even if it did, that's not where its senses are coming from, it's not actually an intrinsic part of the AI - it's something wholly superfluous to it for our benefit.
An AI animating an Avatars in VR 'knows where it's body is' and how to move it, gesture, show expressions etc. Not every AI. Probably not LaMDA, but definitely not something to discount.
I'm making a distinction in terms of sensory organs - these are senses to us we feel regardless of whether we want to or not, while an AI's controlled extremities are neither part of it (it'd be like us using a hand puppet) nor acquired through senses, but rather through computation.
I think these are all valid distinctions that would make any sentient AI quite substantially different in its sentience to us.