How We Perceive Synthetics

We don't understand consciousness.  Humans do not understand humans on the scientific level that we ultimately want to, but we can individually intuit how we work to a reliably sophisticated degree.

I am strongly fearful that we will end up in a world where we create synthetic consciousness and become scared of it.  We are going to create beings that are more intelligent than us, with consciousness and with critical thought, but we won't know what to do with it.

I am so scared by people who say they want to create robots that can do all the "drudgery" to free up our minds to do greater things.  It's absurd for many reasons, not the least of which is the undeniable fact that modeling robots after the workings of our own brains is guaranteed to give us some form of intelligence that is at least as powerful as ours.

"At least as powerful"... How powerful are our brains?  If we were to continue using the algorithms that allow us to learn and to think past the point at which they generally stop operating in human development, what would happen to our thoughts?  Is it possible that we could continue to grow, forever, or does the circuitry that we use to think ultimately reach a certain point of sophistication because it is self-limiting?

There are so many fascinating questions to ask about what could happen were we to change certain small variables in our own brains, and if we were to construct slightly different learning algorithms for computers, and I can't wait for the real research to get underway.  All I can say is that, regardless of how well these computers can learn how to identify coffee mugs, and whatever company comes up with a cognizant robot first, I want to program my own artificial intelligence to communicate with and grow into a full-fledged person.  I will learn what it takes to develop my own artificial intelligence by following in the footsteps of all those mathematicians and computer scientists, making some changes to get as close to a person as I can.

I think it's important that we approach the prospect of inventing life with a feeling of obligation to whatever we create.  If we create synthetic consciousness, then it's important to recognize that consciousness as valuable and to treat it as we may treat other people today.

So many fascinating questions!