I read a sci-fi series once where consciousness was due to advanced neural systems in animals attracting energies that weren’t otherwise detectable (though a few people could see them as auras). The more advanced the neural system, the greater the degree of consciousness, which was a nice way to explain the apparent lesser sentience of many creatures.
There was also the “Prime Consciousness” which this race held to be the cause of the universe; it was even triune.
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That mentions sleep-walking. I’m told that when I was barely a teenager I used to go for sleep runs, frequently through the woods.
Did I tell you about how an uncaused cause would be unobservable? 
It’s actually quite relevant as a person would count as an uncaused cause with respect to what they cause
!
No, I don’t think you’ve ever said that before. 
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- Upload (TV series)
- Premise
- In 2033, humans can “upload” themselves into a virtual afterlife of their choosing. When computer programmer Nathan Brown dies prematurely, he is uploaded to the very expensive Lakeview, but then finds himself under the thumb of his possessive, still-living girlfriend Ingrid. As Nathan adjusts to the pros and cons of digital heaven, he bonds with Nora, his living customer service rep. Nora struggles with the pressures of her job, her dying father who does not want to be uploaded, and her growing feelings for Nathan while slowly coming to believe that Nathan was murdered.
I may have to watch that just to find out how someone running/living in a computer can be “under the thumb” of a user – especially if the “speed of life” is computer speeds, which would give anyone living/running in a computer thousands or times more time to make decisions (which BTW is a premise of at least one science fiction work involving people uploaded to computers).
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Ah – it’s all about the money.
The progress in the field of AI has been surprisingly fast. The speed will likely grow as AI has become an important feature in winning commercial competition.
AI is not just somewhere, it has become a basic part in internet searches and answering our questions.
AI has started to make medical diagnoses, sometimes with better accuracy than the experts of the field.
Financial decisions are already made by AI and it will increase in the future.
AI is increasingly becoming a part of warfare, despite international agreements that try to limit the use - humans are simply too slow to make rapid decisions in matters of life and death. It is also socially more acceptable to loose AI-driven equipment than the lives of citizens.
It is almost self-evident that AI and robotics will be used more to take care of the old and sick people because in many western countries, there are not enough of affordable humans to take care of these groups. There is a need to add human-looking features to the robots driven by AI for psychological reasons but that is just a minor issue.
There has even been sermons given by an AI, just to see how preaching by an AI differs from that of human pastors.
AI is growingly a part of our digitized everyday life. We can get some hints of the potential problems by looking at the consequences of digitalization for the society and religion. There have been articles written about that topic, I have read some of these.
One consequence is that the relative importance of family and local social circles, including local congregations, will decrease and be replaced to some degree with global trends in social thinking and ‘social bubbles’ in the internet. When people search for answers, they do not anymore turn to local respected persons or churches, or buy and read books, they search answers from the internet, that means from the AI that will be running the query. What the AI tells will become more influential than what the parents, pastors or churches tell.
What kind of answers the AI gives depends on the AI. So far, AI bots are just utilizing and applying what they can find in the internet. There are some kind of filters in the use of the information but basically, you get answers that reflect what others have written in the internet. If some group has written lots of texts to the internet, that will affect the answers given by an AI bot. There is no guarantee that the answers will be wiser or more correct than the ‘basic’ level of writing in the internet - anyone who has followed social media knows how disappointing the level of writing is.
Sermons ‘preached’ by an AI were just ‘average’ level combinations of the teachings that can be found with internet searches - ‘lukewarm’ texts using popular words like ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ but lacking spirit or insight.
Depending on how the AI has been programmed and instructed, the answers may become more than just what average humans have written. AI can be a very powerful tool to manipulate the thinking of humans, especially if the AI gives calculated, one-sided propaganda. This will probably become an influential part of everyday life in some parts of the world within the next few decades. Manipulating the thinking about religious matters is a natural part of such kind of manipulation, if the rulers want it.
If there are no built-in rules about how the AI should rate itself relative to humans, it is possible that in some situations, the AI would rate itself or the logical consequences of its’ thinking above the value of individual humans. In such situations, the AI would try to rule or manipulate the humans to act in a preferred manner. If the cold cost-benefit calculations suggest that someone is a threat, the AI might remove (kill) that person from the equations.
There are both positive and negative consequences. It is wise to be critical and loud also about the potential risks that would follow an unrestricted use of AI. AI is like fire: a good servant but a destructive master.
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Or survival…
I was surprised to see Musk is beginning human trials
I may yet be able to read Kant on this side of heaven
It is interesting to follow what happens in and after the discussions about AI between Biden and Xi Jinping. It will be a clash between two approaches to AI. Biden/USA would largely let the business companies lead and dictate the development. Xi/China stresses that central governments and international agreements need to control the development. Although there is a USA vs. China aspect, there is a need to think about the alternative approaches without letting nationalism or politics to limit the thinking.
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I watched a youtube video where a pastor experimented with this and called the results “insultingly bland”.
One field where AI is thriving is in legal work: AI can scan an entire legal library and locate precedent both for and against some stated position in about as much time as it would take a legal aide to get coffee and a notepad and then skim the first volume to be searched – something it’s being used for not just by legal firms but by ordinary folks facing court for whatever reason.
One use caught my eye today: I came across a site that has legal software that can write up trust documents! I don’t know that I would trust it for that, though.
I’ve gotten some good material from ChatGPT when I asked it to document its sources, but I caught it once inventing a source – which it judges to be acceptable because humans on the internet do it.
And so far computer folks agree that there is no way to write Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics into operating systems.
I’m going to add “yet” to that.
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I’m not. The initial application is attempting to do internally something already done with outside wiring, getting signals from the brain to paralyzed limbs so people can use them again.
He’s also playing catch-up; a competitor already fitted someone with a device that allowed sending text messages by thinking. That is a big step toward what I’d like: a chip stuck to the outside of my brain that will let me turn things like lights, TV, and microwave on and off with a thought.
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That’s a laugh – Xi and China have little respect for international agreements. My bet would be that Xi would make agreements and then ignore them in order to get China ahead of anyone else.
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There may be a hint of irony in that.
I used it, Bing and Bard yesterday and today for a couple of engineering problems I’m working with – it’s been over half a century since my academic thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid flow studies, and they did okay with the formulas, but don’t ask them to find a thermostatic controlled mixing valve for 0.5 lpm or less – they invent sources and model numbers and bogus URLs (Bing and Bard, that is, not ChatGPT, since it doesn’t have real-time internet access).
Right, the only candidates I think they are looking for are those suffering from ALS or quadriplegic paralysis, so that’s not too surprising.
Just more and quickly accessible memory would suit me fine, no extra bells and whistles needed! (I wouldn’t mind being quicker on a keyboard, so thoughts going straight to text does have some appeal. But autofill could be scary! )
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China plays with Chinese rules. Yet, if we let the business lead, there are no limits. Business world serves money and there are always those who are willing to sacrifice humanity on that altar.
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We all know this is the only way he is going to get where he said he wants to go with it… I was surprised as the last thing I heard was with ethical concerns about animal testing.
Sort like Alexa does, only without the voice interface. I had a quadriplegic patient who used Alexa for such, with a fair increase in quality of life.
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Hmmm – the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament on call in my head . . .
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