Okay I think we pretty much agree. I have been thinking about what the next “category” of thing is that might function as a substrate of consciousness. I do think that the software techniques people have come up with in AI research, run on “computers” though they may be, are different enough from what we ordinarily think of as computers (CPU, GPU, fast short-term memory, slow long-term memory, etc.) to be a distinct ontological category. And new hardware is being built to specifically accelerate the sort of operations used in those software techniques. I would accept these things being called something other than a computer, even though they could be simulated on a Turing machine or with boolean circuits, because as you’ve said that is of limited use - similar to saying that everything is a mechanistic physical process.
Okay I think we pretty much agree. I have been thinking about what the next “category” of thing is that might function as a substrate of consciousness. I do think that the software techniques people have come up with in AI research, run on “computers” though they may be, are different enough from what we ordinarily think of as computers (CPU, GPU, fast short-term memory, slow long-term memory, etc.) to be a distinct ontological category. And new hardware is being built to specifically accelerate the sort of operations used in those software techniques. I would accept these things being called something other than a computer, even though they could be simulated on a Turing machine or with boolean circuits, because as you’ve said that is of limited use - similar to saying that everything is a mechanistic physical process.
Not my autistic ass getting into fights online again… I’m learning my parsing skills and social skills slowly though!
But yeah, I just want to know what the AI thinks about communism